





:> M 





. inns 

BY 




^^nnA !,^)Ov/cnAn dodo 



L^Llllllll 



In and Out 

of 

Three Normandy Inns 

By 

Anna Bowman Dodd 



With Forty-six Illustrations by 

C. S. Reinhart 

and others 



In and Out 

of 

Three Normandy Inns 



Written by ^i \ 

Anna Bowman Dodd 



With an 
Accompaniment of Illustrations by 

Charles S. Reinhart 

and others 



New York 

Lovell, Coryell & Company 

43, 45 and 47 East Tenth Street 



l\ 



t^^ 

\?"'-^ 



Copyright, 1892 

by 

United States Book Company 

[All rights reserved] 




(B^ition be £,u;ce 

Strictly limited to ^oo copies, of which 
this IS No. ri.^'..?.. 



s^ 






TO EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. 

My Dear Mr. Stedman : 

To this little company of Norman men and wom- 
en, you will, I know, extend a kindly greeting, if 
only because of their nationality. To your courtesy, 
possibly, you will add the leaven of interest, when 
you perceive— as you must — that their qualities are 
all their own, their defects being due solely to my own 
impeifecf presentment . 

With sincere esteem-, 

ANNA BOWMAN DODD. 

iS^ij Madison Avenue, 
New York, N. Y. 



CONTENTS 



VILLERVILLE. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A Landing on the Coast of France, . . 1 

II. A Spring Drive, 13 

III. From an Inn Window, 24 

IV. Out on a Mussel-bed, 35 

V. The Village, 45 

VI. A Pagan Cobbler, 55 

VII. Some Norman Landladies, . . . .66 
VIII. The Quartier Latin on the Beach, . . 80 

IX. A Norman Household, 84 

X. Ernestine, 92 



ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD. 

XI. To an Old Manoir, 
XII. A Norman Cure, . . . . 
XIII. HoNFLEUR — New and Old, 



103 
112 

127 



DIVES. 

XIV. A Coast Drive, 
XV. Guillaume-le-Conquerant, 



147 
161 



viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVI. The Green Bench, . .. . . .169 

XVII. The World that Came to Dives, . . 177 

XVIII. The Conversation of Patriots, . . .183 

XIX. In La Chambre des Marmousets, . . 188 

TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES. 

XX. A Seventeenth Century Revival, . . 197 

XXI. The After-Dinner Talk of Three Great 

Ladies, 204 

XXII. A Nineteenth Century Breakfast, . . 225 

A LITTLE JOURNEY ALONG THE COAST. 

XXIII. A Night in a Caen Attic, .... 247 

XXIV. A Day at Bayeux and St. Lu, . . .266 
XXV. A Dinner at Coutances, .... 276 

XXVI. A Scene in a Norman Court, . . . 290 

XXVII. The Fete-Dieu— A June Christmas, . . 302 

XXVIII. By Land to Mont St. Michel, . . .318 

MONT ST. MICHEL. 

XXIX. By Sea to the Poulard Inn, . . . 335 
XXX. The Pilgrims and the Shrine — An His- 
torical Omelette, . . . . . 350 



£t6t of 'ifheixaiionB 



Giiillaume-le-ConqiiSrani — Dives, , Frontispiece 

On the Beach— I^illerville, . . . .24 
A Sale of Mussels — yUlerville, ... ^4 

A Villerville Fish-Wife, 46 

A Village Street — Villerville, ... ^^2 

A Departure — Villerville, . . . .84 

Criquebceuf Oourch, 108 

Belfry qf St. Catherine — Honfleur, . . . ij2 
Ancient Gate-way — Honfleur, . . . i ^8 

On the Coast, 1^2 

The Inn at Dives — Guillaume-le-Conquerant, 160 
Chambre de la Pucelle — Dives, . . .164 
Chambre des Marmousets — Dives, . . 188 
Chambre de la Pucelle — Dives, . . . 200 
Madame de Sevigne, ..... 204 

Fisherwomen, 2^4 

View of Caen from Abbaye Aux Dames, . 2^6 



X $ifiBi of 3ffuBfrciftonB 

Chateau Foniaine le Henri, near Caen, . . 266 

A Street in Coutances — '^gUse Saint-Pierre, 288 

An Exciting Moment — A Coutances Interior, ^08 

Mont Saint Michel, ^^4 

La Merveille and Apse of Church — Mont Saint 

Michel, ^^o 

Street Scene — Mont Saint Michel, . . . 576 

Mont Saint Michel Snail-Gatherers, . . ^g2 



IN AND OUT OF 

THREE NORMANDY INNS 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 



CHAPTEE I. 

A LANDING ON THE COAST OF FKANCE. 

Nakeow streets 
with sinuous 
curves ; dwarfed 
houses with mi- 
nute shops pro- 
truding o n 
inch- wide 
sidewalks; a 
tiny casino 
''^ perched like 
a bird - cage 
on a tiny scaffolding ; bath-houses dumped on the 
beach; fishing-smacks drawn up along the shore 
like so many Greek galleys ; and, fringing the 
cliffs — the encroachment of the nineteenth cen- 
tury — a row of fantastic sea-side villas. 
This was Villerville. 

Over an arch of roses ; across a broad line 
of olives, hawthorns, laburnums, and syringas, 
straight out to sea — 




4 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

This was tlie view from our windows. 

Our inn was bounded by the sea on one side, and 
on the other by a narrow village street. The dis- 
tance between good and evil has been known to be 
quite as short as that which lay between these two 
thoroughfares. It was only a matter of a strip of 
land, an edge of cliff, and a shed of a house bear- 
ing the proud title of Hotel-sur-Mer. 

Two nights before, our arrival had made quite 
a stir in the village streets. The inn had given 
us a characteristic French welcome; its eye had 
measured us before it had extended its hand. Be- 
fore reaching the inn and the village, however, we 
had already tasted of the flavor of a genuine Nor- 
man welcome. Our experience in adventure had 
begun on the Havre quays. 

Our expedition could hardly be looked upon as 
perilous : yet it was one that, from the first, evi- 
dently appealed to the French imagination ; half 
Havre was hanging over the stone wharves to see 
us start. 

" Dame, only English women are up to that ! " 
— for all the world is English, in French eyes, 
when an adventurous folly is to be committed. 

This was one view of our temerity ; it was the 
comment of age and experience of the world, of the 
cap with the short joipe in her mouth, over which 
curved, downward, a bulbous, fiery-hued nose that 
met the pipe. 

" C'est heaudout de meme, when one is young— and 
rich." This was a generous partisan, a girl with a 
miniature copy of her own round face — a copy 
that was tied up in a shawl, very snug ; it was a 



THREE NORM AND T INNS. o 

bundle tliat could not possibly be in any one's 
way, even on a somewliat prolonged tour of obser- 
vation of Havre's shipping- interests. 

" And the blonde one — what do you think of her, 
hein ? " 

This was the blouse's query. The tassel of the 
cotton night-cap nodded, interrogatively, toward 
the object on which the twinkling ex-mariner's 
eye had fixed itself — on Charm's slender figure, 
and on the yellow half-moon of hair framing her 
face. There was but one verdict concerning the 
blonde beauty ; she was a creature made to be 
stared at. The staring was suspended only when 
the bargaining went on ; for Havre, clearly, was 
a sailor and merchant first ; its knowledge of a 
woman's good points was rated merely as its sec- 
ond-best talent. 

Meanwhile, our bargaining for the sailboat was 
being conducted on the principles peculiar to 
French trafiic ; it had all at once assumed the as- 
pect of dramatic complication. It had only been 
necessary for us to stop on our lounging stroll 
along the stone wharves, diverting our gaze for a 
moment from the grotesque assortment of old 
houses that, before now, had looked down on so 
many naval engagements, and innocently to ask a 
brief question of a nautical gentleman, pictur- 
esquely attired in a blue shirt and a scarlet beret, 
for the quays immediately to swarm with jerseys 
and red caps. Each beret was the owner of a 
boat ; and each jersey had a voice louder than his 
brother's. Presently the battle of tongues was 
drowning all other sounds. 



e THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

In point of fact, there were no other sounds to 
drown. All other business along- the quays was 
being temporarily suspended ; the most thrilling- 
event of the day was centring- in us and our treaty. 
Until this bargain was closed, other matters could 
wait. For a Frenchman has the true instinct of 
the dramatist; business he rightly considers as 
only an entr'acte in life ; the serious thing is the 
scene de theatre, wherever it takes place. Therefore 
it was that the black, shaky-looking houses, lean- 
ing over the quays, were now populous with frowsy 
heads and cotton nightcaps. The captains from 
the adjacent sloops and tug-boats formed an outer 
circle about the closer ring made by the competi- 
tors for our favors, while the loungers along the 
parapets, and the owners of top seats on the shin- 
ing quay steps, may be said to have been in posses- 
sion of orchestra stalls from the first rising of the 
curtain. 

A baker's boy and two fish-wives, trundling their 
carts, stopped to witness the last act of the play. 
Even the dogs beneath the carts, as they sank, 
panting, to the ground, followed, with red-rimmed 
eyes, the closing scenes of the little drama. 

" Allons, let us end this," cried a i^iratical-looking 
captain, in a loud, masterful voice. And he named 
a price lower than the others had bid. He would 
take us across — yes, us and our luggage, and land 
us — yes, at Villerville, for that. 

The baker's boy gave a long, slow whistle, with 
relish. 

" Dame ! " he ejaculated, between his teeth, as he 
turned away. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 7 

Tlie rival captains at first had drawn back ; they 
had looked at their comrade darkly, beneath their 
berets, as they might at a deserter with whom they 
meant to deal — later on. But at his last words 
they smiled a smile of grim humor. Beneath 
the beards a whisper grew ; whatever its import, 
it had the power to move all the hard mouths to 
laughter. As they also turned away, their shrug- 
ging shoidders and the scorn in their light laugh- 
ter seemed to hand us over to our fate. 

In the teeth of this smile, our captain had 
SAvung his boat round and we were stepping into 
her. 

" Au revoir — au revoir et a bienfot /" 

The group that was left to hang over the loara- 
pets and to wave us its farewell, was a thin one. 
Only the professional loungers took part in this 
last act of courtesy. There was a cluster of caps, 
dazzlingly white against the blue of the sky ; a 
collection of highly decorated noses and of old 
hands ribboned with wrinkles, to nod and bob and 
wave down the cracked- voiced " bonjours." But the 
audience that had gathered to witness the closing 
of the bargain had melted away with the moment 
of its conclusion. Long ere this moment of our 
embarkation the wide stone street facing the water 
had become suddenly deserted. The curious-eyed 
heads and the cotton nightcaps had been swal- 
lowed up in the hollows of the dark, little windows. 
The baker's boy had long since mounted his broad 
basket, as if it were an ornamental head-dress, and 
whistling, had turned a sharj) corner, swallowed 
up, he also, by the sudden gloom that lay between 



8 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

the narrow streets. The sloop -owners had linked 
arms with the defeated captains, and were walking- 
off toward their respective boats, whistling- a gay 
little air. 

" Colinette cm hois s^en alia 
En sautillant par-ci, par-la ; 
Trala deridera^ trala, derid-er-a-a" 

One jersey-clad figure was singing lustily as he 
dropped with a spring into his boat. He began to 
coil the loose ropes at once, as if the disappoint- 
ments in life were only a necessary interruption, 
to be accepted philosophically, to this, the serious 
business of his days. 

We were soon afloat, far out from the land of 
either shores. Between the two, sea and river meet ; 
is the river really trying to lose itself in the sea, 
or is it hopelessly attempting to swallow the sea ? 
The green line that divides them will never give 
you the answer : it changes hour by hour, day by 
day ; now it is like a knife-cut, deep and straight ; 
and now like a ribbon that wavers and flutters, ty- 
ing together the blue of the great ocean and the sil- 
ver of the Seine. Close to the lips of the mighty 
mouth lie the two shores. In that fresh May sun- 
shine Havre glittered and bristled, was agloWwith 
a thousand tints and tones ; but we sailed and 
sailed away from her, and behold, already she had 
melted into her cliffs. Opposite, nearing with 
every dip of the dun-colored sail into the blue 
seas, was the Calvados coast ; in its turn it glis- 
tened, and in its young spring verdure it had the 
lustre of a rough-hewn emerald. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 9 

" Que voulez-vous, mesdames ? Wlio could have 
told that tlie wind would play us such a trick % " 

The voice was the Yoice of our captain. With 
much affluence of g-esture he was explaining — his 
treachery ! Our nearness to the coast had made 
the confession necessary. To the blandness of his 
smile, as he proceeded in his unabashed recital, 
succeeded a pained expression. We were not ac- 
ceiating- the situation with the true phleg-m of 
philosophers ; he felt that he had just cause for 
protest. What possible difference could it make to 
us whether we were landed at Trouville or at Yil- 
lerville ? But to him — to be accused of betraying- 
two ladies — to allow the whole of the Havre quays 
to behold in him a man disgraced, dishonored ! 

His was a tragic figure as he stood up, erect on 
the poop, to clap hands to a blue-clad breast, and 
to toss a black mane of hair in the golden air. 

" Dame ! Toujour s eU galcmt homme, moi ! I am 
known on both shores as the most gallant of men. 
But the most gallant of men cannot control the 
caprice of the wind ! " To which was added much 
abuse of the muddy bottoms, the strength of the 
undertow, and other marine disadvantages pecu- 
liar to Villerville. 

It was a tragic figure, with gestures and voice to 
match. But it was evident that the Captain had 
taken his own measure mistakenly. In him the 
French stage had lost a comedian of the first mag- 
nitude. Much, therefore, we felt, was to be con- 
doned in one who doubtless felt so great a talent 
itching for expression. When next he smiled, we 
had revived to a keener aj)preciation of baffled 



10 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

o-enius ever on the scent for the capture of that 
fickle goddess, opportunity. 

The captain's smile was oiling a further word of 
explanation. "See, mesdames, they come! they 
will soon land you on the beach ! " 

He was pointing to a boat smaller than our own, 
that now ran alongside. There had been frequent 
signallings between the two boats, a running up 
and down of a small yellow flag which we had 
thought amazingly becoming to the marine land- 
scape, until we learned the true relation of the flag 
to the treachery aboard our own craft. 

" You. see, mesdames," smoothly continued our 
talented traitor, " you see how the waves run up on 
the beach. We could never, with this great sail, 
run in there. We should capsize. But behold, 
these are bathers, accustomed to the water — they 
will carry you — but as if you were feathers ! " And 
he pointed to the four outstretched, firmly -muscled 
arms, as if to warrant their powers of endurance. 
The two men had left their boat ; it was dancing 
on the water, at anchor. They were standing im- 
movable as pillars of stone, close to the gunwales 
of our craft. They were holding out their arms 
to us. 

Charm suddenly stood upright. She held out 
her hands like a child, to the least impressionable 
boatman. In an instant she was clasping his 
bronze throat. 

" All my life I've prayed for adventure. And at 
last it has come ! " This she cried, as she was 
carried high above the waves. 

" That's right, have no fear," answered her car- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 11 

rier as lie plunged onward, ploughing his way 
through the waters to the beach. 

Beneath my own feet there was a sudden swish 
and a swirl of restless, tumbling waters. The 
motion, as my carrier buried his bared legs in the 
waves, v.^as such as accompanies impossible flights 
described in dreams, through some unknown 
medium. The surging waters seemed struggling 
to submerge us both ; the two thin, tanned legs of 
the fisherman about whose neck I was clinging, 
appeared ridiculously inadequate to cleave a suc- 
cessful path through a sea of such strength as was 
running shoreward. 

" Madame does not a^Dpear to be used to this 
kind of travelling," puffed out my carrier, his con- 
versational instinct, apparently, not in the least 
dampened by his strenuous plunging through the 
spirited sea. " It hapiDcns every day — all the aris- 
tocrats land this way, when they come over by the 
little boats. It distracts and amuses them, they 
say. It heliDs^to kill the ennui." 

" I should think it might, my feet are soaking ; 
sometimes wet feet " 

"Ah, that's a pity, you must get a better hold," 
sympathetically interrupted my fisherman, as he 
proceeded to hoist me higher up on his shoulder. 
I, or a sack of corn, or a basket of fish, they were 
all one to this strong back and to these toughened 
sinews. When he had adjusted his present load 
at a secure height, above the dashing of the spray, 
he went on talking. " Yes, when the rich suffer a 
little it is not such a bad thing, it makes a pleas- 
ant change — cela leur distrait. For instance, there 



12 THREE N0B3IANDT INNS. 

is the Princess de L , there's her villa, close 

by, with green blinds. She makes little excuses 
to go over to Havre, just for this — to be carried in 
the arms like an infant. You should hear her, she 
shouts and claps her hands ! All the beach as- 
sembles to see her land. When she is wet she 
cries for joy. It is so difficult to amuse one's self, 
it appears, in the great world." 

" But, tiens, here we are, I feel the dry sands." I 
was dropped as lightly on them as if it had been 
indeed a bunch of feathers my fisherman had been 
carrying. 

And meanwhile, out yonder, across the billows, 
with airy gesture dramatically executed, our treach- 
erous captain was waving us a theatrical salute. 
The infant mate was grinning like a gargoyle. 
They were both delightfully unconscious, appar- 
ently, of any event having transpired, during the 
afternoon's pleasuring, which could possibly tinge 
the moment of parting with the hues of regret. 

" Pour les hagages, mesdames " 

Two dripping, outstretched hands, two berets 
doffed, two picturesque giants bowing low, with a 
Frenchman's grace — this, on the Trouville sands, 
was the last act of this little comedy of our land- 
ing on the coast of France. 



CHAPTEE II. 



A SPKING DEIYE. 





1 The Trouville beach was as 
empty as a desert. No 
other footfall, save our own, 
echoed along the broad 
board walks ; this Boule- 
vard des Italiens of the Nor- 
mandy coast, under the sun 
of May was a shining- pave- 
ment that boasted only a 
companj'" of jelly-fishes as 
loungers. 

Down below was a village, 
a white cluster of little wooden houses ; this was 
the village of the bath-houses. The hotels might 
have been monasteries deserted and abandoned, in 
obedience to a nod from Eome or from the home 
government. Not even a fisherman's net was 
spread a-drying, to stay the appetite with a sense 
of past favors done by the sea to mortals more 
fortunate than we. The whole face of nature was 
as indifferent as a rich relation grown callous to 
the voice of entreaty. There was no more hope of 
man apparently, than of nature, being moved by 
our necessity ; for man, to be moved, must primar- 
ily exist, and he was as conspicuously absent on 



14 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

this occasion as Genesis proves him to have been 
on the fourth day of creation. 

Meanwhile we sat still, and took counsel to- 
g-ether. The chief of the council suddenly pre- 
sented himself. It was a man in miniature. The 
masculine shape, as it loomed up in the distance, 
gradually separating- itself from the background of 
villa roofs and casino terraces, resolved itself into 
a figure stolid and sturdy, very brown of leg, and 
insolent of demeanor — swaggering along as if con- 
scious of there being- a full-grown man buttoned 
up within a boy's ragged coat. The swagger was 
accompanied by a whistle, whose neat crispness 
announced habits of leisure and a sense of the re- 
fined pleasures of life ; for an artistic rendering of 
an aria from " La Fille de Madame Angot " was 
cutting the air with clear, high notes. 

The whistle and the brown legs suddenly came 
to a dead stop. The round blue eyes had caug-ht 
sight of us : 

" Ouid-a-a ! " was this young- Norman's saluta- 
tion. There was very little trouser left, and what 
there was of it was all pocket, apparently. Into 
the pockets the boy's hands were stuffed, along 
with his amazement ; for his face, round and full 
though it was, could not hold the full measure of 
his surprise. 

" We came over by boat — from Havre," we mur- 
mured meekly ; then, " Is there a cake-shop near ? " 
irrelevantly concluded Charm with an unmistak- 
able ring of distress in her tone. There was no 
need of any further explanation. These two hearty 
young- appetites understood each other ; for hunger 



THBEE NORMANDY INNS. 15 

is a universal language, and cake a countersign 
common among the youtli of all nations. 

" Until you came, you see, we couldn't leave the 
luggage," she went on. 

The blue eyes swept the line of our boxes as if 
the lad had taken his afternoon stroll with no other 
purpose than to guard them. " There are eight, 
and two umbrellas. Soyez tranquille, je vous atten- 
drai." 

It was the voice and accent of a man of the 
world, four feet high — a pocket edition, so to speak, 
in shabby binding. The brown legs hung, the 
next instant, over the tallest of the trunks. The 
skilful whistling was resumed at once ; our appear- 
ance and the boy's present occupation were mere 
interludes, we were made to understand ; his real 
business, that afternoon, was to do justice to 
the Lecoq's entire opera, and to keep his eye on 
the sea. 

Only once did he break down ; he left a high C 
hanging perilously in mid-air, to shout out " I like 
madeleines, I do ! " We assured him he should 
have a dozen. 

" Bien ! " and we saw him settling himself to 
await our return in iDatience. 

Up in the town the streets, as we entered them, 
were as empty as was the beach. Trouville might 
have been a buried city of antiquity. Yet, in spite 
of the desolation, it was French and foreign ; it 
welcomed us with an unmistakably friendly, com- 
panionable air. TVhy is it that one is made to feel 
the companionable element, by instantaneous pro- 
cess, as it were, in a Frenchman and in his towns ? 



16 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

And by what mag-ic also does a French village or 
city, even at its least animated period, convey to 
one the fact of its nationality ? We made but ten 
steps progress through these silent streets, front- 
ing the beach, and yet, such was the subtle enigma 
of charm with which these dumb villas and mute 
shops were invested, that we walked along- as if 
under the spell of fascination. Perhaps the charm 
is a matter of sex, after all : towns are feminine, in 
the wise French idiom, that idiom so delicate in 
discerning- qualities of sex in inanimate objects, as 
the Greeks before them were clever in discovering- 
sex distinctions in the moral qualities. Trouville 
was so true a woman, that the coquette in her was 
alive and breathing even in this her moment of 
suspended animation. The closed blinds and iron 
shutters appeared to be winking at us, slyly, as if 
warning- us not to believe in this nightmare of 
desolation ; she was only sleeiDing, she wished us 
to understand ; the touch of the first Parisian 
would wake her into life. The features of her 
fashionable face, meanwhile, were arrang-ed with 
perfect comjDosure ; even in slumber she had pre- 
served her woman's instinct of orderly g-race ; not 
a sign was awry, not a window-blind gave hint of 
rheumatic hinges, or of shattered vertebrae; ail 
the machinery was in order ; the faintest pressure 
on the electrical button, the button that connects 
this lady of the sea with the Paris Bourse and the 
Boulevards, and how gayly, how agilely would this 
Trouville of the villas and the beaches spring into 
life! 
The listless glances of the few tailors and cob- 



TEHEE NORMANDY INNS. 17 

biers who, with suspended thread, now looked 
after us, seemed dazed — as if they could not be- 
lieve in the reality of two early tourists. A wom- 
an's head, here and there, leaned over to us from 
a high window ; even these feminine eyes, how- 
ever, appeared to be glued with the long- winter's 
lethargy of dull sleep ; they betrayed no edge of 
surprise or curiosity. The sun alone, shining with 
spendthrift glorj^, flooding the narrow streets and 
low houses with a late afternoon stream of color, 
was the sole inhabitant who did not blink at us, 
bovinely, with dulled vision. 

Half an hour later we were speeding along the 
roadway. Half an hour — and Trouville might have 
been a thousand miles away. Inland, the eye 
plunged over nests of clover, across the tops of the 
apple and peach trees, frosted now with blos- 
soms, to some farm interiors. The familiar Nor- 
mandy features could be quickly spelled out, one 
by one. 

It was the milking-hour. 

The fields were crowded with cattle and women ; 
some of the cows were standing immovable, and 
still others were slowly defiling, in processional 
dignity, toward their homes. Broad-hiiaped, lean- 
busted figures, in coarse gowns and worsted ker- 
chiefs, toiled through the fields, carrying full milk- 
jugs ; brass ampJione these latter might have been, 
from their classical elegance of shape. Plough- 
men api^eared and disappeared, they and their 
teams rising and sinking with the varying heights 
and depressions of the more distant undulations. 
In the nearer cottages the voices of children would 



18 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

occasionally fill tlie air with a loud clamor of 
speech ; then our steed's bell-collar would jing-le, 
and for the children's cries, a bird-throat, high 
above, from the heights of a tall pine would pour 
forth, as if in uncontrollable ecstasy, its rapture 
into the stillness of this radiant Normandy garden. 
The song appeared to be heard by other ears than 
ours. "VVe were certain the dull-brained sheep 
were greatly affected by the strains of that gen- 
erous-organed songster — they were so very still 
under the pink apple boughs. The cows are al- 
ways good listeners; and now, relieved of their 
milk, they lifted eyes swimming with appreciative 
content above the grasses of their pasture. Two 
old peasants heard the very last of the crisp trills, 
before the concert ended ; they were leaning forth 
from the narrow window-ledges of a straw-roofed 
cottage ; the music gave to their blinking old eyes 
the same dreamy look we had read in the ruminat- 
ing cattle orbs. For an aeronaut on his way to 
bed, I should have felt, had I been in that black- 
bird's plumed corselet, that I had had a gratify- 
ingly full house. 

Meanwhile, toward the west, a vast marine 
picture, like a panorama on wheels, was accom- 
panying us all the way. Sometimes at our feet, 
beneath the seamy fissures of a hillside, or far re- 
moved by sweep of meadow, lay the fluctuant mass 
we call the sea. It was all a glassy yellow surface 
now ; into the liquid mirror the polychrome sails 
sent down long lines of color. The sun had sunk 
beyond the Havre hills, but the flame of his man- 
tle still swept the sky. And into this twilight 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 19 

there crept up from tlie earth a subtle, delicious 
scent and smell^the smell and perfume of spring — 
of the ardent, vigorous, unsiaent Normandy spring. 

Suddenly a belfry grew out of the grain-fields. 

" Nous void— here's Villerville ! " cried lustily 
into the twilight our coachman's thick peasant 
voice. With the butt-end of his whip he pointed 
toward the hill that the belfry crowned. Below 
the little hamlet church lay the village. A high, 
steep street plunged recklessly downward toward 
the cliff; we as recklessly were following it. The 
snapping of our driver's whip had brought every 
inhabitant of the street upon the narrow side- 
walks. A few old women and babies hung forth 
from the windows, but the houses were so low, 
that even this loortion of the population, ham- 
pered somewhat by distance and comparative iso- 
lation, had been enabled to join in the chorus of 
voices that filled the street. Our progress down 
the steep, crowded street was marked by a pomp 
and circumstance which commonly attend only a 
royal entrance into a town ; all of the inhabitants, 
to the last man and infant, apparently, were as- 
sembled to assist at the ceremonial of our entry. 

A chorus of comments arose from the shado-wy 
groups filling the low doorways and the window 
casements. 

" Tiens — it begins to arrive — the season ! " 

" Two ladies— alone — like that ! " 

"Dame ! Anglaises, Americaines — they go round 
the world thus, d deux ! " 

" And why not, if they are young and can 
pay ? " 



20 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

" Ball ! old or poor, it's all one— they're never 
still, those English!" A chorus of croaking- 
laughter rattled down the street along with the 
rolling' of our carriage-wheels. 

Above, the great arch of sky had shrunk, all at 
once, into a narrow scoUojd ; with the fields and 
meadows the glow of twilight had been left behind. 
We seemed to be pressing our way against a great 
curtain, the curtain made by the rich dusk that 
filled the narrow thoroughfare. Through the 
darkness the sinuous street and rickety houses 
wavered in outline, as the bent shapes of the aged 
totter across dimly-lit interiors. A fisherman's 
bare legs, lit by some dimly illumined interior ; 
a line of nets in the little yards ; here and there 
a white kerchief or cotton cap, dazzling in white- 
ness, thrown out against the black fa9ades, were 
spots of light here and there. There was a glimpse 
of the village at its supper — in low-raftered inter- 
iors a group of blouses and women in fishermen's 
rig were gathered about narrow tables, the coarse- 
featured faces and the seamed foreheads lit up by 
the feeble flame of candles that ended in long, thin 
lines of smoke. 

Ohe — Mere lloucJiard ! — des voyageurs ! " cried 
forth our coachman into the darkness. He had 
drawn up before a low, brightly-lit interior. In 
response to the call a figure appeared on the 
threshold of the open door. The figure stood 
there for a long instant, rubbing its hands, as it 
peered out into the dusk of the night to take a 
good look at us. The brown head was cocked on 
one side thoughtfully ; it was an attitude that ex- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 21 

pressed, with astonisliiugiy clear emphasis, an 
unmistakable professional conception of hospital- 
ity. It was the air and manner, in a word, of one 
who had long- since trimmed the measurement of 
its graciousness to the iDrice paid for the article. 

" Ces dames wished rooms, they desired lodgings 
and board — ces dames were alone 1 " The voice 
finally asked, with reticent dignity. 

" From Havre — from Trouville, jxtr^ytit bateau ! " 
called out lustily our driver, as if to furnish us, 
gratis, with a passport to the landlady's not too 
effusive cordiality. 

What secret spell of magic may have lain hid- 
den in our friendly coachman's announcement we 
never knew. But the " p'tit bateau " worked mag- 
ically. The figure of Mere Mouchard materialized 
at once into such zeal, such efi'usion, such a zest 
of welcome, that we, our bags, and our coachman 
were on the instant toiling up a pair of spiral 
wooden stairs. There was quite a little crowd to fill 
the all-too-narrow landing at the top of the steep 
steps, a crowd that ended in a long line of waiters 
and serving-maids, each grasping a remnant of 
luggage. Our hostess, meanwhile, was fumbling 
at a door-lock — an obstinate door that refused to 
be wrenched open. 

"Augustine — run — I've taken the wrong key. 
Cows, mon enfant, it is no farther away than the 
kitchen." 

The long line pressed itself against the low 
walls. Augustine, a black - haired, neatly -gar- 
mented shape, sped down the rickety stairs with 
the step of youth and a dancer ; for only the nimble 



22 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

ankles of one accomplished in waltzing- could liave 
tripped as dexterously downward as did Augus- 
tine. 

''How slie lags! wliat an idiot of a cliild ! " 
fumed Mere Moucliard as she peered down into 
the round blackness about which the curving 
staircase closed like an embrace. " One must have 
patience, it appears, with people made like that. 
Ah, tiens, here she comes. How could you keep 
ces dames waiting like this! It is shameful, 
shameful ! " cried the woman, as she half shook the 
panting girl, in anger. " If ces dames will enter," 
— her voice changing at once to a caressing fal- 
setto, as the door flew open, opened by Augustine's 
trembling fingers — " they will find their rooms in 
readiness." 

The rooms were as bare as a soldier's barrack, 
but they were spotlessly clean. There was the 
pale flicker of a sickly candle to illumine the 
shadowy recesses of the curtained beds and the 
dark little dressing-rooms. 

A few moments later we wound our way down- 
ward, spirally, to find ourselves seated at a round 
table in a cosy, compact dining-room. Directly 
opposite, across the corridor, was the kitchen, 
from which issued a delightful combination "of 
vinous, aromatic odors. The light of a strong, 
bright lamp made it as brilliant as a ball-room ; it 
was a ball-room which for decoration had rows of 
shining brass and copper kettles — each as bur- 
nished as a jewel — a mass of sunny porcelain, and 
for carpet the satin of a wooden floor. There was 
much bustling to and fro. Shapes were constantly 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 23 

passing- and repassing across the lig-lited interior. 
The Mere's broad-hipped figure was an omniscient 
presence : it Iiovered at one instant over a steam- 
ing saucepan, and the next was lifting a full milk- 
jug or opening a wine-bottle. Above the clatter 
of the dishes and the stirring of spoons arose the 
thick Normandy voices, deep alto tones, speaking 
in strange jargon of speech — a world of 2Kifois re- 
moved from our duller comprehension. It was 
made somewhat too plain in this country, we re- 
flected, that a man's stomach is of far more impor- 
tance than the rest of his body. The kitchen 
yonder was by far the most comfortable, the warm- 
est, and altogether the prettiest room in the whole 
house. 

Augustine crossed the narrow entry just then 
with a smoking pot of soup. She Avas followed, 
later, by Mere Mouchard, who bore a sole au vin 
hlanc, a bottle of white Burgundy, and a super- 
naturally ethereal souffle. And an hour after, even 
the curtainless, carpetless bed-chambers above 
were powerless to affect the luxurious character of 
our dreams. 



CHAPTEE III. 

FROM AN INN WINDOW. 

One travels a long- dis- 
tance, sometimes, to make 
tlie astonishing discovery 
that pleasure comes with 
the doing- of very simple 
^, \, , things. We had come from 

J over the seas to find the act 

of leaning on a window case- 
ment as exciting as it was satisfying. It is true 
that from our two inn windows there was a de- 
lightful variety of nature and of human nature to 
look out upon. 

From the windows overlooking the garden there 
was only the horizon to bound infinity. The Atlan- 
tic, beginning with the beach at our feet, stopped 
at nothing till it met the sky. The sea, literally, 
was at our door ; it and the Seine were next-door 
neighbors. Each hour of the day these neighbors 
presented a different face, were arrayed in totally 
different raiment, Avere grave or gay, glowing with 
color or shrouded in mists, according to the mood 
and temper of the sun, the winds, and the tides. 
The width of the sky overhanging this space was 
immense ; not a scrap, apparently, was left over 
to cover, decently, the rest of the earth's surface — 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 25 

of that one was quite certain in looking- at this vast 
inyerted cup overflowing- with ether. AVhat there 
was of land was a very sketchy performance. Op- 
posite ran the red line of the Havre headlands. 
Following- the river, inland, there was a pretence 
of shore, just sufficiently outlined, like a youth's 
beard, to give substance to one's belief in its future 
growth and development. Beneath these windows 
the water, hemmed in by this edge of shore, pant- 
ed, like a child at play ; its sig-hs, liquid, lisping, 
were irresistible ; one found oneself listening for 
the sound of them as if they had issued from a 
human throat. The humming- of the bees in the 
g-arden, the cry of a fisherman calling across the 
water, the shout of the children below on the 
beach, or, at twilight, the chorussing- birds, carol- 
ling at full concert pitch ; this, at most, was all the 
sound and fury the sea-beach yielded. 

The windows opening on the villag-e street let 
in a noise as tumultuous as the sea was silent. 
The hubbub of a perpetual babble, all the louder 
for being compressed within narrow space, was 
always to be heard ; it ceased only when the vil- 
lage slept. There was an incessant clicking ac- 
companiment to this noisy street life ; a music 
played from early dawn to dusk over the pave- 
ment's rough cobbles — the click clack, click clack 
of the countless wooden sabots. 

Part of this clamor in the streets was due to the 
fact that the villag-e, as a village, appeared to be 
doing a tremendous business with the sea. 

Men and women were perpetually g-oing- to and 
coming from the beach. Fishermen, sailors. 



26 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

women bearing- nets, oars, masts, and sails ; 
chilcben bending- beneath the weight of baskets 
filled with kicking fish; wheelbarrows stocked 
high with sea-food and warm clothing; all this 
commerce with the sea made the life in these 
streets a more animated performance than is com- 
monly seen in French villages. 

In time, the provincial mania began to work in 
our veins. 

To watch our neighbors, to keep an eye on 
this life— this became, after a few days, the chief 
occupation of our waking hours. 

The windows of our rooms fronting on the 
street were peculiarly well adapted for this un- 
mannerly occupation. By merely opening the 
blinds, we could keep an eye on the entire village. 
Not a cat could cross the street without undergo-, 
ing inspection. Augustine, for examjole, who, 
once having turned her back on the inn windows, 
believed herself entirely cut off from observation, 
was perilously exposed to our mercy. We knew 
all the secrets of her thieving habits ; we could 
count, to a second, the time she stole from the 
Mere, her employer, to squander in smiles and 
dimples at the corner creamery. There a tall 
Norman rained admiration upon her through wide 
blue eyes, as he patted, caressingly, the pots of 
blond butter, just the color of her hair, before 
laying them, later, tenderly in her open palm. 
Soon, as our acquaintance with our neighbors 
deepened into something like intimacy, we came 
to know their habits of mind as we did their facial 
peculiarities; certain of their actions made an 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 27 

event in our day. It became a serious matter of 
conjecture as to whether Madame de Tours, the 
social swell of the town, would or would not offer 
up her prayer to Deity, accompanied by Friponne, 
her black poodle. If FriiDonne issued forth from 
the narrow door, in company with her austere mis- 
tress, the shining- black silk gown, we knew, would 
not decorate the angular frame of this aristocratic 
provincial ; a sober beige was best fitted to resist 
the dashes made by Friponne's sharply-trimmed 
nails. It was for this, to don a silk gown in full 
sight of her neighbors ; to set up as companion a 
dog of the highest fashion, the very purest of 
caniches, that twenty years of patient nursing a 
paralytic husband — who died all too slowly — had 
been counted as nothing ! 

Once we were summoned to our outlook by the 
vigorous beating of a drum. Madame Mouchard 
and Augustine were already at their own jDOst of 
observation — the open inn door. The rest of the 
village was in full attendance, for it was not every 
day in the week that the "tambour," the town- 
crier, had business enough to render his appear- 
ance, in his official capacity, necessary ; as a mere 
townsman he was to be seen any hour of the day, 
as drunk as a lord, at the sign of " L'Ami Fidele." 
His voice, as it rolled out the words of his cry, 
was as staccato in jpitch as any organ can be whose 
practice is largely confined to unceasing calls for 
potations. To the listening crowd, the thick voice 
was shouting : 

" Madame Tricot — a la messe — dimanche — a — 
perdu une hroche — or etj^erles — avec cheveux — 3Ia- 



28 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

dame Merle aperdu—sur la plage— un panier avec 

— MW chat noir " 

We ourselves, to our astonishment, were drum- 
med tlie very next morning. Augustine had 
made the discovery of a missing shoulder-cape; 
she had taken it upon herself to call in the drum- 
mer. So great was the attendance of villagers, 
even the abstractors of the lost garment must, we 
were certain, be among the crowd assembled to 
hear our names shouted out on the still air. We 
were greatly affected by the publicity of the occa- 
sion ; but the village heard the announcement, 
both of our names and of our loss, with the phlegm 
of indifference. " Vingt francs x>our avoir tambour- 
ine mademoiselle ! " This was an item which a 
week later, in madame's little bill, was not con- 
fronted with indifference. 

" It gives one the feeling of having had relations 
with a wandering circus," remarked the young 
philosopher at my side. 

"But it is really a great convenience, that 
system," she continued ; " I'm always mislaying 
things — and through the drummer there's a whole 
village as aid to find a lost article. I shall, doubt- 
less, always have that, now, in my bills ! " And 
Charm, with an air of serene confidence in the vil- 
lage, adjusted her restored shoulder-cape. 

Down below, in our neighbor's garden — the one 
adjoining our own and facing the sea— a new and 
old world of fashion in capes and other garments 
were a-flutter in the breeze, morning after morn- 
ing. Who and what was this neighbor, that he 
should have so curious and eccentric a taste in 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 29 

clotlies ? No woman was to be seen in tlie g-arden- 
patlis ; a man, in a butler's apron and a silk skull- 
cap, came and went, his arms piled liigli with 
g'owns and scarves, and all manner of strang-e odds 
and ends. Each morning some new assortment of 
g^arments met our wondering eyes. Sometimes it 
was a collection of Empire embroidered costumes 
that were hung out on the line ; faded fleur-de-lis, 
sprigs of dainty lilies and roses, gold-embossed 
Empire coats, strewn thick with seed-i3earls on 
satins softened by time into melting shades. When 
next we looked the court of Napoleon had van- 
ished, and the Bourbon period was, literally, in full 
swing". A frou-frou of laces, coats with deep skirts, 
and beribboned trousers would be fluttering airily 
in the soft May air. Once, in fine contrast to 
these courtly splendors, was a wondrous assort- 
ment of flannel petticoats. They were of every 
hue — red, yellow, brown, pink, patched, darned, 
wide-skirted, plaited, ruffled — they appeared to 
represent the taste and requirement of every cli- 
mate and country, if one could judge by the 
thickness of some and the gossamer tissues of 
others ; but even the smartest were obviously, un- 
mistakably, effrontedly, flannel x>etticoats. 

It was a mystery that greatly intrigued us. One 
morning the mystery was solved. A whiff of to- 
bacco from an upper window came along with a 
puff of wind. It was a heated whiff, in spite of 
the cooling breeze. It was from a pipe, a short, 
black pipe, owned by some one in the Mansard 
window next door. There was the round disk of a 
dark-blue beret drooping over the pipe. " Good — " 



so THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

I said to myself—" I shall see now — at last — this 
maniac with a taste for darned petticoats ! " 

The pipe smoked peacefully, steadily on. The 
beret was motionless. Betweeen the pipe and the 
cap was a man's profile ; it was too much in shadow 
to be clearly defined. 

The next instant the man's face was in full sun- 
light. The face turned toward me — with the quick 
instinct of knowing- itself watched — and then — 

"Fas— 2^08 sible ! " 

" You— here ! " 

" Been here a year— but you, when did you ar- 
rive ? What luck! What luck ! " 

It was John Eenard, the artist ; after the first 
salutations question followed question. 

" Are you alone % " 

" No." 

" Is she — young ? " 

" Yes." 

" Pretty % " 

" Judge for yourself — that is she — in the garden 
yonder." 

The beret dipped itself perilously out into the 
sky — to take a full view. 

" Hem — I'll come in at once." 

It was as a trio that the conversation was con- 
tinued later, in the garden. But Renard was still 
chief questioner. 

" Have you been out on the mussel-beds ? " 

"Not yet." 

" We'll go this afternoon — Have you been to 
Honfleur ? Not yet % — We'll go to-morrow. The 
tide will be in to-day about four — I'll call for you 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 31 

— wear heavy boots and old clothes. It's jolly 
dirty. "Where do you breakfast ? " 

The breakfast was eaten^ as a trio, at our inn, an 
hour later. It was so warm a day, it was served 
under one of the arbors. Augustine was feeding- 
and caressing the doves as we entered the inn 
garden. At sight of Kenard she dropped a quiet 
courtesy, smiles and roses struggling for a su- 
premacy on her round peasant face. She let the 
doves loose at once, saying : " Allez, allez," as if 
they quite understood that with Monsieur Ke- 
nard's advent their hour of success was at an end. 

Why does a man's presence always seem to com- 
municate such surprising animation to a woman 
— to any woman ? Wliy does his appearance, for 
instance, suddenly, miraculously stiffen the sauces, 
lure from the cellar bottles incrusted Avith the 
gray of thick cobwebs, give an added drop of the 
lemon to the mayonnaise, and make an omelette 
to swim in a sea of butter ? All these added 
touches to our commonly admirable breakfast 
were conspicuous that day — it was a breakfast for 
a prince and a gourmet. 

" The Mere can cook — when she gives her mind 
to it," was Eenard's meagre masculine comment, 
as the last morsel of the golden omelette disap- 
peared behind his mustache. 

It was a gay little breakfast, with the circling 
above of the birds and the doves. There are dull- 
er forms of pleasure than to eat a repast in the 
company of an artist. I know not why it is, but it 
has always seemed to me that the man who lives 
only to copy life appears to get far more out of it 



32 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

than tliose who make a point of seeing- nothing in 
it save themselves. 

Renarcl, meanwhile, was taking pains to assure 
us that in less than a month the Villerville beaches 
would be crowded ; only the artists of the brushes 
were here now; the artists of high life would 
scarcely be found deserting the Avenue des Aca- 
cias before June. 

" French people are always coming to the sea- 
shore, you know — or trying to come. It's a part 
of their emotional religion to worship the sea. 
' La mer ! la mer ! ' they cry, with eyes all whites ; 
then they go into little swoons of rapture — I can 
see them now, attitudinizing in salons and at 
tables-d'hote ! " To which comment we could find 
no more original rejoinder than our laughter. 

It was a day when laughter was good ; it put one 
in closer relations with the universal smiling. 
There are certain days when nature seems to laugh 
aloud ; in this hour of noon the entire universe, all 
we could see of it, was on a broad grin. Every- 
thing moved, or danced, or sang ; the leaves were 
each alive, trembling, quivering, shaking ; the in- 
sect hum was like a Wagnerian chorus, deafening 
to the ear ; there was a brisk, light breeze stirring 
— a breeze that moved the higher branches of the 
trees as if it had been an arm ; that rippled the 
grass ; that tossed the wavelets of the sea into 
such foam that they seemed over-running with 
laughter; and such was still its unspent energy 
that it sent the Seine with a bound up through its 
shores, its waters clanging like a sheet of mail 
armor worn by some lusty warrior. We were 



THREE NOBMANDT INJ^S. 33 

walking in the narrow lane that edged the cliff ; it 
was a lane that was guarded with a sentinel row 
of osiers, syringas, and laburnums. This was the 
guard of the cliifs. On the other side was the 
high garden wall, over which we caught dissolv- 
ing views of dormer-windows, of gabled roofs, 
viue-clad walls, and a maze of peach and pear 
blossoms. This was not x>recisely the kind of 
lane through which one hurried. One needed 
neither to be sixteen nor even in love to find it a 
delectable path, very agreeable to the eye, very 
suggestive to the imaginative faculty, exceedingly 
satisfactory to the most fastidious of all the senses, 
to that aristocrat of all the five, the sense of smell. 
Like all entirely perfect experiences in life, the 
lane ended almost as soon as it began ; it ended 
in a steep pair of steps that dropped, precipitously, 
on the x>ebbles of the beach. 

For some reason best known to the day and the 
view, we all, with one accord, proceeded to seat 
ourselves on the topmost step of this stairway. 
We were waiting for the tide to fall, to go out to 
the mussel-bed. Meanwhile the prospect to be 
seen from this improvised seat was one made to be 
looked at. There is a certain innate compelling 
quality in all great beauty. When nature or 
woman presents a really grandiose appearance, 
they are singularly reposeful, if you notice ; they 
have the calm which comes with a consciousness 
of splendor. It is only prettiness which is tor- 
mented with the itching for display ; and there- 
fore this prospect, which rolled itself out beneath 
our feet, curling in a half-moon of beach, broaden- 



34: THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

ing into meadows that dropped to ttie river edge, 
lifting- its beauty upward till the hills met the sky. 
and the river was lost in the clasp of the shore — 
this aspect of nature, in this moment of beauty, 
was as untroubled as if Chateaubriand had not 
found her a lover, and had flattered man by per- 
suading him that 

" La voix de I'univers, c'est mon intelligenceo" 




CHAPTER IV. 

OUT ON A MUSSEL-BED. 

That same afternoon we were 

out on the mussel-bed. 

5 The tide was at its lowest. 

'f^'-^» Before us, for an acre or more, 

I there lay a wide, wet, stretch of 

brown mud. Near the beach 

was a strip of yellow sand ; here 

and there it had contracted 

into narrow ridges, elsewhere 

it had expanded into scroll-like 

patterns. The bed of mud and slime ran out from 

this yellow sand strip — a surface diversified by 

puddles of muddy water, by pools, clear, ribbed 

with wavelets, and by little heaps of stones covered 

with lichens. The surface of the bed, whether 

l^ools or puddles, or rock-heaps, or sea-weeds 

massed, was covered by thousands and thousands 

of black, lozenge-shaped bivalves. These bivalves 

were the mussels. Over this bed of shells and 

slime there moved and toiled a whole villageful 

of old women. Where the sea met the edges of 

the mud-fiat the throng of women was thickest. 

The line of the ever-receding shore was marked 

by the shapes of countless bent figures. The 

heads of these stooping women were on a level 



36 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

with their feet, not one stood upright. All that 
the eye could seize for outline was the dome made 
by the bent hips, and the backs that closed against 
the knees as a blade is clasped into a knife handle. 
The oblong masses that were lifted now and then, 
from the level of the sabots, resolved themselves 
into the outlines of women's heads and women's 
faces. These heads were tied up in cotton ker- 
chiefs or in cotton nightcaps ; these being white, 
together with the long, thick, aprons also white, 
were in startling contrast to the blue of the sky 
and to the changing sea-tones. 

Between these women and the incoming tide, 
twice dailj^ was fought a persistent, unrelenting 
duel. It was a duel, on the part of the fish-wives, 
against time, against the fate of the tides, against 
the blind forces of nature. For this combat the 
women were armed to the teeth, clad as they were 
in their skeleton muscular leanness ; helmeted with 
their heads of iron ; visored in the bronze of their 
skin and in wrinkles that laughed at the wind. 
In these sinewy, toughened bodies there was a 
grim strength that appeared to know neither ache 
nor fatigue nor satiety. 

High, clear, strong, came their voices. The 
tones were the tones that come from deej) chests, 
and with a prolonged, sustained capacity for en- 
during the toil of men. But the high-pitched 
laughter proved them women, as did their loud 
and unceasing gossip. The battle of the voices 
rose above the swash of the waves, above, also, 
another sound, as incessant as the women's chatter 
and the swish of the water as it hissed along the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 37 

mud-flat's edges. This was the swift, sharp, saw- 
like cutting among the stones and the slime, the 
scrape, scrape of the hundred of knives into the 
moist earth. This ceaseless scraping, lunging, 
digging, made a new world of sound — strange, sin- 
ister, uncanny. It was neither of the sea nor yet 
of the land — it was a noise that seemed insepar- 
able from this tongue of mud, that also appeared 
to be neither of the heavens above nor of the earth, 
from the bowels out of which it had sprung. 

The mussels cling to their slime with extraordi- 
nary tenacity ; only an ex^Dert, who knows the ex- 
act i3oint of attachment between the hard shell and 
its soil, can remove a mussel with dexterity. These 
women, as they dipped their knives into the thick 
mud, swept the diminutive black bivalve with a 
trenchant movement, as a Moor might cleave a 
human head with one turn of his moon-shaped 
sword. Into the bronzed, wrinkled old hands the 
mussels then were slipjaed as if they had been so 
many dainty sweets. 

New and pungent smells were abroad on this 
strip of slime. Sea smells, strong and salty ; 
smells of the moist and damp soil, the bitter-sweet 
of wetted weeds, the aromatic flavor that shell-life 
yields, and the smells also of rotten and decaying 
fish — all these were inextricably blended in the 
air, that was of the keenness of a frost-blight for 
freshness, and yet was warm with the softness of a 
June sun. 

Meanwhile the voices of the women were near- 
Ing. Some of the bent heads were lifted as we ap- 
proached. Here and there a coif, or cotton cap, 



38 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

nodded, and the slit of a smile would g-ape be- 
tween the nose and the meeting- chin. A high 
good humor appeared to reign among- the g-roups ; 
a carnival of merriment laug-hed itself out in 
coarse, cracked laug-hter ; loud was the play of 
the jests, hoarse and g-uttural the g-ibes that were 
abroad on the still air, from old mouths that 
uttered strong-, deep notes. 

"Wli3^ should they all be old?" we queried. 
We were near enough to see the women face to 
face now, since we were far out along the outer 
edges of the bed ; we were so near the sea that 
the tide was beginning to wash us back, along with 
the fringe of the diggers. 

" They're not — they only look old," replied Ke- 
nard, stop^Ding a moment to sketch in a group di- 
rectly in front. " Tliis life makes old women of 
them in no time. How old, for instance, should 
you think that girl was, over there % " 

The girl whom he designated was the only fig- 
ure of youth we had seen on the bed. She was 
working alone and remote from the others. She 
wore no coif. Her masses of red, wavy hair shaded 
a face already deeply seamed with lines of pre- 
mature age. A moment later she passed close to 
us. She was bent almost double beneath a hrlge, 
reeking basket, heaped with its pile of wet mus- 
sels. She was carrying it to a distant pool. Once 
beside the pool, with swift, dexterous movement 
the heavy basket was slipx)ed from the bent back, 
the load of mussels falling in a shower into the 
miniature lake. The next instant she was stamping 
on the heap, to plunge them with her sabot still 



THREE NOBMANDT INNS. 39 

further into the pooL She was washing her load. 
Soon she shoaldered the basket again, filling- it 
with the cleansed mussels. A moment later she 
joined the long", toiling line of women that were 
perpetually forming and reforming on their way 
to the carts. These latter were drawn up near the 
beach, their contents guarded by boys and old 
men, who received the loads the women had dug, 
dragging the whole, later, up the hill. 

" She has the Venus de Milo lines, that girl," 
Renard continued, critically, with his eyes on her, 
as she now repassed us. The figure was drawn 
up at its full height. It had in truth a noble dig- 
nity of outline. There was a Spartan vigor and 
severity in the lean, uncorseted shape, with the 
bust thrown out against the sky — the bust of a 
young warrior rather than a woman. There was a 
hardy, masculine freedom in the pliable motion 
of her straight back, a ripple with muscles that 
played easily beneath the close jersey, in her 
arms, and her finely turned ankles and legs, that 
were bared below the knee. The very simplicity 
of her costume helped to mark the Greek severity 
of her figure. She wore a short skirt of some 
coarse hempen stuff, covered with a thick apron 
made of sail-cloth, her feet thrust into black sabots, 
while the upper part of her body was covered with 
an unbleached chemise, widely open at the throat. 

She had the Phidian breadth and the modern 
charm — that charm which troubles and disturbs, 
haunting the mind with vague, unsatisfied sugges- 
tions of something finer than is seen, something 
nobler than the gross physical envelope reveals. 



40 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

" I must liave lier — for my Salon picture," calm^ 
ly remarked Eenard, after a long- moment of scru- 
tiny, his eyes following- tlie lean, stately figure in 
its grave walk across the weeds and slime. " Yes, 
I must have her." 

" Won't she be hard to get ? How can she be 
made to sit, a stiffened image of clay, after this 
life of freedom, this athletic struggle out here — 
with these winds and tides "? " 

One of us, at least, was stirred at Renard's calm 
assumption — the assumption so common to artists, 
who, when they see a good thing- at once count on 
its possessorship, as if the whole world, indeed, 
were eternally sitting', agape with impatience, 
awaiting the advent of some painter to sketch in 
its portrait. 

" Oh, it'll be easy enough. She makes two francs 
a day with her six basketfuls. I'll offer her three, 
and she'll drop like a shot." 

" I'll make it a red picture," he continued, dip- 
ping his brushes into a little case of paints he held 
on his thumb ; " the mussel-bed a reddish violet, 
the sky red in the horizon, and the girl in the 
foreground, with that torrent of hair as the high 
light. I've been hunting- for that hair all over 
Europe." And he began sketching her in at 
once. 

" Bonjour, mere, how goes it 1 " He nodded as 
he sketched at a wrinkled, bent figure, who was 
smiling out at him from beneath her load of mus- 
sels. 

" Pas mal — e' vous, M'sieur Renard ? " 

" All right— and the mortgage, how goes that ? " 



THBEE NOBMANDY INNS. 41 

" Pas si mal — it'll be paid off next year." 

" Who is she ? One of your models ? " 

" Yes, last year's : she was my belle — the belle 
of the mussel-bed for me, a year ago. Now there's 
a lesson in patience for you. She's sixty-five, if 
she's a minute ; she's been working" here, on this 
mussel-bed, for five years, to pay the mortgage off 
her farm ; when that is done, her daughter Augus- 
tine can marry; Augustine's dot is the farm." 

" Augustine — at our inn '^ " 

" The very same." 

"And the blonde — the handsome man at the 
creamery, he is the future — »-- "? " 

" I'm sorry to hear such things of Augustine," 
smiled Eenard, as he worked; "she must be in- 
dulging in an entr'acte. No, the gentleman of 
Augustine's — well, perhaps not of her affections, 
but of her mother's choice, is a peasant who works 
the farm ; the creamery is only an incidental di- 
version. Again, I'm sorry to hear such sad things 
of Augustine " 

" Horrors ! " 

" Exactly. That's the way it's done — over here. 
Will you join me — over there ?" Renard blushed 
a little. " I mean I wish to follow that girl — she's 
going to dig out yonder. Will you come % " 

Meanwhile the light was changing, and so was 
the tide. The women were coming inward, washed 
up to the shore along with the grasses and sea- 
weeds. A band of diggers suddenly started, with 
full basket loads, toward a fishing boat that had 
dropped anchor close in to the shore ; it was a 
Honfleur craft, come to buy mussels for the Paris 



42 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

market. The women trndgecl tliroiigh. the water, 
up to their waists ; they clustered about the boats 
like so many laden beasts. But their shrill bar- 
gaining" proved them women. 

Meanwhile that gentle hissing along the level 
stretch of brown mud was the tide. It was push- 
ing the women upward, as if it had been a hand — 
the hand of a relentless fate — instead of a little, 
liquid kiss. 

The sun, as it dipped, made a glory of splendor 
out of this commonplace bank. It soaked the mud 
in gold ; it was in a royal mood, throwing its lar- 
gess with reckless abundance to this poor of earth 
— to the slime and the mud. The long, yellow, 
lichen leaves massed on the rocks were dyed as if 
lying in a yellow bath. The sands were richly 
colored ; the ridges were brown in the shadows 
and burnished at the tops. In the distance the 
sea- weeds were black, sable furs, covering the vel- 
vet robes of earth. The sea out beyond was as 
rosy as a babe, and the sails were dazzlingly white 
as they floated past, between the sky and the dis- 
tant purple line of the horizon. 

Meanwhile the tide is coming in. 

The procession of the women toward the carts 
grows in numbers. The thick sabots plunge in-to 
the mud, the water squirts out of the wooden shoes 
as the strong heels jiress into them. The straw, 
the universal stocking of these women-diggers, is 
reeking with dirt. Volumes of slush are splashed 
on the bared skinny ankles, on the wet skirts, wet 
to the waists, and on the coarse sail-cloth aprons 
tied beneath the hanging bosoms. The women 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 43 

are all drenched now in a bath of filth. The 
baskets are reeking- with filth also, they rain 
showers of dirt along the bent backs. A long line 
of the bent figures has formed on their way to the 
carts. There is, however, a thick fringe of diggers 
left who still dispute their rights with the sea. 

But the tide is pushing them inward, upward. 
And all the while the light is getting more and 
more golden, shimmery, radiant. Under this light, 
beneath this golden mantel of color, these creat- 
ures appear still more terrible. As they bend 
over, their faces tirelessly held downward on a 
level with their hands, they seem but gnomes ; 
surely they are huge, undeveloped embryos of 
women, with neither head nor trunk. For this 
light is pitiless. It makes them even more a 
part of this earth, out of which they seem to have 
sprung, a strange amorphous growth. The 
bronzed skins are dyed in the gold as if to match 
with the hue of the mud ; the wet skirts are 
shreds, gray and brown tatters, not so good in text- 
ure as the lichens, and the ragged jersej^s seem 
only bits of the more distant weeds woven into 
tissues to hide mercifully the lean, sinewy backs. 

The tide is almost in. 

In the shallows the sunset is fading. Here and 
there are brilliant little pools, each pool a mirror, 
and each mirror reflects a different picture. Here 
is a second sky — faintly blue, with a trailing saf- 
fron scarf of cloud ; there, the inverted silhouettes 
of two fish-wives are conical shapes, their coifs and 
wet skirts startlingly distinct in tones ; beyond, 
sails a fantastic fleet, with polychrome sails, each 



44 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

spar, masthead, and wrinkled sail as sharply out- 
lined as if chiselled in relief. Presently these min- 
iature pictures fade as the light fades. Blacker 
grows the mud, and there is less and less of it ; 
the silhouetted shapes of the diggers are seen no 
more; they are following the carts up the steep 
cliffs ; even the sky loses its color and fades also. 
And the little pools that have been a burning 
orange, then a darkening violet, gay with pictured 
worlds, in turn i3ale to gray, and die into the uni- 
versal blackness. 

The tide is in. 

It is flowing, rich and full, crested with foam be- 
neath the osier hedges. We hear it break with a 
sudden dash and splutter against the cliff para- 
pets. And the mud-bank is no more. 

Half an hour later, from our chamber windows 
we looked forth through the dusk across at the 
mussel-bed. The great mud-bank, all that black 
acreage of slime and sea-weed, the eager, strug- 
gling band of toiling nsh-wives, all was gone ; it 
was all as if it had not been — would never be 
again. The water hissed along the beach ; it broke 
in rhythmic, sonorous measure against the para- 
X3et. Surely there had never been any beds, or 
any mussels, or any toiling fish-wives ; or if there 
had, it was all a world that the sea had washed 
up, and then as quietly, as heedlessly, as piti- 
lessly had obliterated. 

It was the very epitome of life itself. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE VILLAGE. 

f 7 '"^H OuE visit to the mussel-bed, 

ps^,, ^ ■ I as we soon found, had been 

' **-' *' ■* our formal introduction to 

; the village. Henceforth ev- 

'■;, ~"- ery door-step held a friend; 

j ^.s not a coif or a blouse jDassed 

I i without a greeting". The 

i -<5 village, as a village, lived in 

"J the open street. Villerville 

j -*,.»i^ ' had the true French genius 

' - for society ; the very houses 

'— — -^ were neighborly, crowding 

close upon the narrow sidewalk. Conversation, to 
be carried on from a dormer-window or from oppo- 
site sides of the street, had evidently been the first 
architectural consideration in the mind of the 
builders ; doors and windows must be as open and 
accessible as the lives of the inhabitants. The 
houses themselves appeared to be regarded in the 
light of pockets, into which the old women and 
fishermen ]plunged to drag forth a net or a knife ; 
also as convenient, if rude, little caverns into 
which the village crawled at night, to take its 
heavy slumber. 

The door-step was the drawing - room, and 




k VII-LEKTILLE FISH-WIFE. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 47 

young- Norman maidens, whose glances, brilliant 
and restless, were pregnant with all the meaning- 
of unspent youth. The figures of the fishermen, 
toiling- up the street with bared leg-s and hairy 
breast, bending- beneath their baskets alive with 
fish, stoiDped to have a word or two, seasoned with 
a laugh, with these latter g-roups. There were 
also knots of patient old men, wrecks that the sea 
had tossed back to earth, to rot and die there, that 
came out of the black little houses to rest their 
bones in the sun. And everywhere there were 
g-roups of old women, or of women still young, to 
whom the look of age had come long before its 
due time. 

The village seemed peopled with women, sexless 
creatures for the most part, whom toil and the life 
on the mussel-bed or in the field had dried and 
hardened into mummy shapes. Only these, the 
old and the useless, were left at home to rear the 
younger generation and to train them to take up 
the same heavy burden of life. The coifs of these 
old hags made dazzling spots of brightness against 
the gray of the walls and the stuccoed houses; 
clustered together, the high caps that nodded in 
unison to the chatter were in startling contrast to 
the bronzed faces bending over the fish-nets, and 
to the blue-veined, leathery hands that flew in and 
out of the coarse meshes with the fluent ease of 
long practice. 

With one of these old women we became friends. 
We had made her acquaintance at a poetic mo- 
ment, under romantic circumstances. We were all 
three watching a sunset, under a pink sky; we 



48 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

were sitting- far out on the grasses of the cliff. 
Her house was in the midst of the grasses, some 
little distance from the village, attached to it only 
as a ragged fringe might edge a garment. It was 
a thatched hut ; yet there were circumstances in 
the life of the owner which had transformed the 
interior into a luxurious apartment. The owner 
of the hut was herself hanging on the edge of life ; 
she was a toothless, bent, and withered old rem- 
nant ; but her vigor and vivacity were those of a 
witch. Her hands and eyes were ceaselessly ac- 
tive ; she was forever busy, fingering a fish-net, or 
polishing her Normandy brasses, or stirring some 
dark liquid in an iron ipot over the dim fire. 

At our first meeting, conversation had immedi- 
ately engaged itself ; it had ended, as all right 
talk should, in friendship. On this morning of 
our visit, many a gay one having preceded it, we 
found our friend arrayed as if for an outing. She 
had mounted her best coif, and tied across her 
shrivelled old breast was a vivid lourple silk ker- 
chief. 

" Tiens, mes enfants, soyez les hienvenues" was 
her gay greeting, seasoned with a high cackling- 
laugh, as she waved us to two rickety chairs. 
"No, I'm not going out, not yet; there is plenty 
of time, plenty of time. It is you who are good, 
si aimables, to come out here to see me. And tired, 
too, hein, with the long walk "? Tiens, I had nearly 
forgotten ; there's a bottle of wine open below — 
you must take a glass." 

She never forgot. The bottle of wine had al- 
waj^s just been opened ; the cork was always also 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 49 

miraculously rebellious for a cork tliat liad been 
previously pulled. x4.1thoug-li our ancient friend 
was a peasant, her cellar was the cellar of a g-our- 
met. Wonderful old wines were hers ! Port, 
Bordeaux, white wines, of vintages to make the 
heart warm ; each was produced in turn, a differ- 
ent vintage and wine on each one of our visits, but 
no champagne. This was no wine for women — 
for the right women. Champag-ne was a bad, fast 
wine, for fast, disreputable people. " C'est un 
vrai 2^018011, qui vous infecte," she had declared again 
and again, and when she saw her daughter drink- 
ing it, it made her shudder ; she confessed to hav- 
ing a moment of doubt ; had Paris, indeed, really 
brought her child no harm ? Then the old mere 
would shrug her bent shoulders and rub her 
hands, and for a moment she would be lost iu 
thought. Presently the cracked old laugh would 
peal forth again, and, as she threw back her head, 
she would shake it as if to dispel some dark 
vision. 

To-day she had dropped, almost as soon as we 
entered, into a narrow trap -door, descending a 
flight of stone steps. "VVe could hear a clicking of 
bottles and a rustling of straw; and then, behold, 
a veritable fairy issuing from the bowels of the 
earth, with flushes of red sufl'using the ribbed, be- 
wrinkled face, as the old figure straightens its 
crookedness to carry the dusty bottle securely, 
steadily, lest the cloudy settling at the bottom 
should be disturbed. What a merry little feast 
then began ! We had learned where the glasses 
were kept; we had been busily scouring them while 



50 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

our hostess was below. Tlieu wine and glasses, 
along- with three chairs, were quickly placed on 
the pine table at the door of the old house. Here, 
on the grass of the cliffs, we sat, sipping our wine, 
enjoying the sea that lay at our feet, and above, 
the sunlit sky. To our friend both sky and sea 
were familiar companions ; but the fichu was a 
new friend. 

" Yes, it is very beautiful, as you say," she said, 
in answer to our admiring comments. " It came 
from Paris, from my daughter. She sent it to 
me ; she is always making me gifts ; she is one 
who remembers her old mother ! Figure to your- 
selves that last year, in midwinter, she sent me no 
less than three gowns, all wool ! What can I do 
with them °l C'est pour me flatter, c'est sa maniere 
de me dire qiCil faut vivre jyour longtemiys ! Ah, la 
cherefoUe ! But she spoils me, the darling! " 

This daughter had become the most mysterious 
of all our Villerville discoveries. Our old friend 
was a peasant, the child of peasant farmers. She 
would always remain a peasant ; and yet her 
daughter was a Parisian, and lived in a honhon- 
niere. She was also married ; but that only served 
to thicken the web of mystery enshrouding her. 
How could a daughter of a peasant, brought up as 
a peasant, who had lived here, a tiller of the fields 
till her nineteenth year, suddenly be transformed 
into a woman of the Parisian world, gain the iDOsi- 
tion of a banker's wife, and be dancing, as the old 
mere kept telling us, at balls at the Elysee "? Her 
mother never answered this riddle for us ; and, 
more amazing still, neither could the village. The 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 51 

village would shrug its shoulders, when we ques- 
tioned it, with discretion, concerning this enig'ma. 
" Ah, dame ! It was she — the old mere — who had 
had chances in life, to marry her daughter like 
that ! Victorine was pretty — yes, there was no 
gainsaying she was pretty — but not so beautiful 
as all that, to entrap a banker, un homme serieux, 
qui vif de ses rentes ! and who was generous, too, 
for the old mere needn't work now, since she was 
always receiving money." Gifts were perpetually 
pouring into the low rooms — wines, and Parisian 
delicacies, and thick garments. 

The tie between the two, between the mother 
and daughter, appeared to be as strong and their 
relations as complete, as if one were not clad in 
homespun and the other in Worth gowns. There 
was no shame, that was easily seen, on either side ; 
each apparently was full of ]pride in the other ; 
their living apart was entirely due to the old 
mere's preference for a life on the cliffs, alone in 
the midst of all her old peasant belongings. 

" C est plus chez-soi, id ! Yictorine feels that, too. 
She loves the smell of the old wood, and of the 
peat burning there in the fireplace. When she 
comes down to see me, I must shut fast all the 
doors and windows ; she wants the whole of the 
smell, pour faire le vrai bouquet, as she says. If 
she had had children — ah !— I don't say but what 
I might have consented; but as it is, I love my 
old fire, and my view out there, and the village, 
best ! " 

At this point in the conversation, the old eyes, 
bright as they were, turned dim and cloudy ; the 



52 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

inward eye was doubtless seeing something otlier 
than the view ; it was resting on a youthful figure, 
clad in Parisian draperies, and on a face rising 
above the draperies, that bent lovingly over the 
deep-throated fireplace, basking in its warmth, and 
revelling in its homely perfume. We were silent 
also, as the picture of that transfigured daughter 
of the house flitted across our own mental vision. 

" The village ? " suddenly broke in the old mere, 
" Dieu de Dieu ! that reminds me. I must go, my 
children, I must go. Loisette is waiting ; la pau- 
vre enfant — perhaps suffering too — how do I know ? 
And here am I, playing, like a lazy clout ! Did 
you know she had had un nini this morning ? The 
little angel came at dawn. That's a good sign ! 
And what news for Auguste ! He was out last 
night — fishing ; she was at her washing when he 
left her. Tiens, there they are, looking for him ! 
They've brought the spy-glass." 

The old mere shaded her eyes, as she looked out 
into the dazzling sunlight. We followed her fin- 
ger, that pointed to a projection on the cliffs. 
Among the grasses, grouped on top of the high- 
est rock, was a family party. An old fish-wife was 
standing far out against the sky ; she also was 
shading her eyes. A child's round head, crowded 
into a white knit cap, was etched against the 
wide blue ; and, kneeling, holding in both hands a 
seaman's long glass, was a girl, sweeping the hori- 
zon with swift, skilful stretches of arm and hand. 
The sun descended in a shower of light on the old 
grandam's seamy face, on the red, bulging cheeks 
of the chubby child, and on the bent figure of the 




A VILLAGE STREET — VILLERVILLE. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 53 

girl, "wliose knees were firmly implanted in the 
deep, tall g'rasses. Beyond the group there was 
nothing but sea and sky. 

"Yes," the mere went on, garrulously, as she 
recorked the bottle of old port, carrying table and 
glasses within doors. " Yes, they're looking for 
him. It ought to be time, now ; he's due about 
now. There's a man for you — good — hon comme le 
hon Dieu. Sober, saving too — good father — in love 
with Loisette as on the wedding night — ah, mes 
enfants ! — there are few like him, or this village 
would be a paradise ! " 

She shut the door of the little cabin. And then 
she gave us a broad wink. The wink was entirely 
by way of explanation ; it was to enlighten us as 
to why a certain rare bottle of port — a fresh one- 
was being secreted beneath her fichu. It was a 
wink that conveyed to us a really valuable number 
of facts ; chief among them being the very obvious 
fact that thq French Government was an idiot, and 
a tyrant into the bargain, since it imposed stupid 
laws no one meant to carry out ; least of all a good 
Norman. What ? pay two sous octroi on a bottle 
of one's own wine, that one had had in one's cellar 
for half a lifetime ? To cheat the town out of 
those twopence becomes, of course, the true Nor- 
man's chief pleasure in life. What is his reputa- 
tion worth, as a shrewd, sharp man of business, if 
a little thing like cheating stops him ? It is even 
better fun than bargaining, to cheat thus one's 
own town, since nothing is to be risked, and one is 
so certain of success. 

The mere nodded to us gayly, in farewell, as 



54 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

we all tliree re-entered the town. She disap- 
peared all at once into a narrow door- way, her arms 
still clasping her old port, that lay in the folds of 
her shawl. On her shrewd kindly old face came a 
light that touched it all at once with a glow of di- 
vinity ; the mother in her had sprung into life with 
sharp, sweet suddenness ; she had caught the wail 
of the new-born babe through the open door. 

The village itself seemed to have caught some- 
thing of the same glow. It was not only the 
splendor of the noon sun that made the faces of 
the worn fish-wives and the younger women softer 
and kindlier than common ; the groups, as we 
passed them, were all talking of but one thing — of 
this babe that had come in the night, of Auguste's 
absence, and of Loisette's sharp pains and her 
cries, that had filled the street, so that none could 
sleep. 



CHAPTER VI. 

A PAGAN COBBLEE. 



[~ , . At dusk that evening- the 

same subject, with vari- 
'. ations, was the universal 

' topic of the conversation- 
'4 j al groups. Still Auguste 
j u I had not come; half the 

\ village was out watching" 

■ for him on the cliffs. The 

other half was crowding- 
, the streets and the door- 
^ - - -^ steps. 
Twilight is the classic time, in all French towns 
and villages, for the al-fresco lounge. The cool 
breath of the dusk is fresh, then, and restful ; after 
the heat and sweat of the long- noon the air, as it 
touches brow and lip, has the charm of a caress. 
So the door- ways and streets w^ere alwaj^s crowded 
at this hour ; groups moved, separated, formed 
and re-formed, and lingered to exchange their bud- 
g-et of gossip, to call out their " Bonne nuit," the 
g-irls to clasp hands, looking- longingly over their 
shoulders at the younger fishermen and farmers ; 
the latter to nod, carelessly, gayly back at them ; 
and then — as men will — to fling- an arm about a 



56 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

comrade's shoulder as they, in their turn, called 
out into the dusk, 

"Allans, mon hrave ; de VdbsintJie, toi?" as the 
cabaret swallowed them up. 

Great and mighty were the cries and the oaths 
that issued from the cabaret's open doors and 
windows. The Villerville fisherman loved Bacchus 
only, second to Neptune; when he was not out 
casting his net into the Channel he was drinking 
up his spoils. It was during the sobering' process 
only that affairs of a purely domestic nature en- 
gaged his attention. Some of the streets were 
permeated with noxious odors, with the poison of 
absinthe and the fumes of cheap brandy. Noisy, 
reeling groups came out of the tavern doors, to 
shout and sing, or to fight their way homeward. 
One such figure was filling a narrow alley, sway- 
ing from right to left, with a jeering crowd at his 
heels. 

" Est-il assez ridicule, lui ? with his cap over his 
nose, and his knees knocking at everyone's door ? 
Ball ! ga pue ! " the grouj) of lads following him went 
on, shouting about the poor sot, as they pelted him 
with their rain of pebbles and paper bullets. 

"Ah — h, he will beat her, in his turn, poor 
soul ; she always gets it when he's full, as full as 
that " 

The voice was so close to our ears that we started. 
The words appeared addressed to us ; they were, 
in a way, since they were intended for the street, 
as a street, and for the benefit of the groups that 
filled it. The voice was gruff yet mellow ; despite 
its gruffness it had the ring of a latent kindliness 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 57 

in its deep tones. The man who owned it was 
seated on a level with our elbows, at a cobbler's 
bench. We stopjDed to let the crowd push on 
beyond us. The man had only lifted his head from 
his work, but involuntarily one stopped to salute 
the i:)ower in it. 

" Bonsoir, mesdames " — the head gravely bowed 
as the great frame of the body below the head 
rose from the low seat. The room within seemed 
to contain nothing- else save this giant figure, now 
that it had risen and w^as moving toward us. The 
half-door was courteously opened. 

" Will not ces dames give themselves the trouble 
of entering ? The streets are not gay at this 
hour." 

We went in. A dog and a woman came forth 
from a smaller inner room to greet us ; of the two 
the dog was obviously the personage next in point 
of intelligence and importance to the master. The 
woman had a snuffed-out air, as of one whose life 
had died out of her years ago. She blinked at us 
meekly as she dropped a timid courtesy ; at a low 
word of command she turned a pitifully patient 
back on us all. There were years of obedience to 
orders written on its submissive curves ; and she 
bent it once more over her kettles ; both she and 
the kettles were on the bare floor. It was the 
poorest of all the Yillerville interiors we had as 
yet seen ; the house was also, perhaps, the oldest 
in the village. It and the old church had been 
opposite neighbors for several centuries. The 
shop and the living-room were all in one ; the low 
window was a counter by day and a shutter by 



58 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

night. Within, the walls were bare as were the 
floors. Three chairs with sunken leather covers, 
and a bed with a mattress, also sunken — a hollow 
in a pine frame, was the equipment in furniture. 
The poverty was brutal; it was the naked, un- 
abashed poverty of the middle ages, with no hint 
of shame or effort of concealment. The colossus 
whom the low roof covered was as unconscious 
of the barrenness of his surroundings as were his 
own walls. This hovel was his home; he had 
made us welcome with the manners of a king. 

Meanwhile the dog was sniffing at our skirts. 
After a tour of observation and inspection he 
wagged his tail, gave a short bark, and seated him- 
self by Charm. The giant's eyes twinkled. 

" Tou see, mesdames, it is a dog with a mind — he 
knows in an instant who are the right sort. And 
eloquence, also — he is one who can make speeches 
with his tail. A dog's tongue is in his tail, and 
this one wags his like an orator ! " 

Some one else, as well as the dog, possessed the 
oratorical gift. The cobbler's voice was the true 
speaker's voice — rich, vibrating, sonorous, with a 
deep note of melody in it. Pose and gestures 
matched with the voice ; they were flexible and 
picturesquely suggestive. 

" If you care for oratory — " Charm smiled out 
upon the huge but mobile face — "you are well 
placed. The village lies before you. You can 
always see the play going on, and hear the 
speeches — of the passers-by." 

The large mouth smiled back. But at Charm's 
first sentence the keen Norman eyes had fixed 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 59 

their twinMing- glitter on the girl's face. Tliey 
seemed to be reading to the very bottom of her 
thought and being. The scrutiny was not relaxed 
as he answered. 

" Yes, yes, it is very amusing. One sees a little 
of everything here. Le monde qui passe — it makes 
life more diverting ; it helps to kill the time. I 
look out from my iDerch, like a bird — a very old 
one, and caged " — and he shook forth a great 
laugh from beneath the wide leather apron. 

The woman, hearing the laugh, came out into 
the room. 

" E'heM — et toi — what do you want ? " 

The giant stopped laughing long enough to 
turn tyrant. The woman, at the first of his growl, 
smiled feebly, going back with unresisting meek- 
ness to her knees, to her pots, and her kettles. 
The dog growled in imitation of his master ; ob- 
viously the soul of the dog was in the wrong 
body. 

Meanwhile the master of the dog and the 
woman had forgotten both now ; he was continu- 
ing, in a masterful way, to enlighten us about the 
peculiarities of his native village. The talk had 
now reached the subject of the church. 

" Oh, yes, it is fine, very, and old; it and this 
old house are the oldest of all the inhabitants 
of this village. The church came first, though, it 
was built by the English, when they came over, 
thinking to conquer us with their Hundred Years' 
AVar. Little they knew France and Frenchmen. 
The church was thoroughly French, although the 
English did build it ; on the ground many times, 



60 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

but up ag-ain, only waiting the liand of tlie builder 
and the restorer." 

Again the slim-waisted shape of the old wife 
"ventured forth into the room. 

" Yes, as he says " — in a voice that was but an 
echo — "the church has been down many times." 

" Tais-toi — c'est moi qui parle" grumbled anew 
her husband, giving the withered face a terrific 
scowl. 

" OM, Old, c'est toi," the echo bleated. The thin 
hands meekly folded themselves across her apron. 
She stood quite still, as if awaiting more punish- 
ment. 

" It is our good cure who wishes to pull it down 
once more," her terrible husband went on, not 
heeding her quiet presence. " Do you know our 
cure ? Ah, ha, he's a fine one. It's he that rules 
us now— he's our king — our emperor. Ugh, he's 
a bad one, he is." 

" Ah, yes, he's a bad one, he is," his wife echoed, 
from the side wall. 

" Well, and who asked you to talk 1 " cried her 
husband, with a face as black as when the cure's 
name had first been mentioned. The echo shrank 
into the wall. " As I was telling these ladies " — 
he resumed here his boot work, clamping the last 
between his great knees — " as I was saying, we 
have not been fortunate in cures, we of our parish. 
There are cures and cures, as there are fagots and 
fagots — and ours is a bad lot. We've had nothing 
but trouble since he came to rule over us. We get 
poorer day by day, and he richer. There he is 
now, feeding his hens and his doves — look, over 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 61 

tliere^witli the ladies of his household gathered 
about him — his mother, his aunt, and his niece — a 
perfect harem. Oh, he keeps them all fat and 
sleek, like himself ! Bah ! " 

The grunt of disgust the cobbler gave filled the 
room like a thunder-clap. He was peering over 
his last, across the open counter, at a little house 
adjoining the church green, with a great hatred in 
his face. From one of the windows of the house 
there was leaning forth a group of three heads ; 
there was the tonsured head of a priest, round, 
pink-tinted, and the figures of two women, one 
youthful, with a long, sad-featured face, and the 
other ruddy and vigorous in outline. They were 
watching the priest as he scattered corn to the 
hens and geese in the garden below the window. 

The cobbler was still eying them fiercely, as he 
continued to give vent to his disgust. 

"Mediant Jiomm.e — lui," he here whipped his 
thread, venomously, through the leather he was 
sewing. " Figure to yourselves, mesdames, that 
besides being wicked, our cure is a very shrewd 
man ; it is not for the pure good of the parish he 
works, not he." 

"Not he," the echo repeated, coming forth again 
from the wall. This time the whisper passed un- 
noticed ; her master's hatred of the cure was 
greater than his passion for showing his own 
power. 

" Religion — religion is a very good way of mak- 
ing money, better than most, if one knows how to 
work the machine. The soul, it is a fine instru- 
ment on which to play, if one is skilful. Our 



62 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

cure has a grand toucli on this instrument. You 
should see the good man take up a collection, it is 
better than a comedy." 

Here the cobbler turned actor ; he rose, scatter- 
ing his utensils right and left ; he assumed a grand 
air and a mincing, softly tread, the tread of a 
priest. His flexible voice imitated admirably the 
rounded, unctuous, autocratic tone peculiar to the 
graduates of St. Sulpice. 

" You should hear him, when the collection does 
not suit him : ' 3Ies freres et mes soeurs, I see that 
le hon Dieu isn't in your minds and your hearts 
to-day ; you are not listening to his voice ; the 
Saviour is then speaking in vain ? ' Then he 
prays — " the cobbler folded his hands with a great 
parade of re"verence, lifting his eyes as he rolled 
his lids heavenward hypocritically — " yes, he prays 
— and then he passes the plate himself ! He holds 
it before your very nose, there is no pushing it 
aside ; he would hold it there till you dropped — 
till Doomsday. Ah, he's a hard crust, he is ! 
There's a tyrant for you — la monctrcMe ahsolue — 
that's what he believes in. He must have this, he 
must have that. Now it is a new altar-cloth, or a 
fresh Yirgin of the modern make, from Paris, with 
a robe of real lace ; the old one was black and faded, 
too black to xoray to. Now it is a huissier, forsooth, 
that we must have, we, a XDarish of a few hundred 
souls, who know our seats in the church as well as 
we know our own noses. One would think a 
' Suisse ' would have done ; but we are swells now — 
avec ce gaillard-la, only the tiptop is good enough. 
So, if you grace our poor old church with your 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 63 

presence you will be shown to your bench by a 
very splendid gentleman in black, in knee-breeclies, 
with silver chains, with a three-cornered hat, who 
strikes with his stick three times as he seats j'ou. 
Bah ! ridiculous ! " 

" Eidiculous ! " the woman repeated, softly. 

" They had the cure once, though. One day in 
church he announced a subscription to be taken up 
for restorations, from fifty centimes to — to any- 
thing ; he will take all you give him, avaricious 
that he is ! He believes in the greasing of the 
palm, he does. AVell, think you the subscription 
was for restorations, mesdames ? It was for 
demolition — that's what it was for — to make 
the church level with the ground. To do this 
would cost a little matter of twenty thousand 
francs, which would pass through his hands, 
you understand. Well, that staggered the parish. 
Our mayor — a man pas tro]y fin, was terribly up- 
set. He went about saying the cure claimed the 
church as his ; he could do as he liked with it, he 
said, and he proposed to make it a fine modern 
one. All the village was weeping. The church 
was the oldest friend of the village, except for 
such as I, whom these things have turned pa- 
gan. AVell, one of our good citizens reminds the 
mayor that the church, under the new laws, be- 
longs to the commune. The mayor tells this 
timidly to the cure. And the cure retorts, 'Ah, 
hien, at least one-half belongs to me.' And the 
good citizen answers — he has gone with the 
mayor to in^op him up — 'Which half will you 
take % The cemetery, doubtless, since your charge 



64 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

is over the souls of the parish.' Ah ! ah ! he 
pricked him well then ! he pricked him well ! " 

The low room rang- with the great shout of the 
cobbler's laughter. The dog barked furiously in 
concert. Our own laughter was drowned in the 
thunder of our host's loud guffaws. The poor old 
wife shook herself with a laugh so much too vigor- 
ous for her frail frame, one feared its after-effects. 

The after-effects were a surprise. After the first 
of her husband's spasms of glee the old woman 
spoke out, but in trembling tones no longer. 

" Ah, the cemetery, it is I who forgot to go there 
this week." 

Her husband stopped, the laugh dying on his 
lip as he turned to her. 

"Ah, ma bonne, how came that ? You forgot ? " 
His own tones trembled at the last word. 

" Yes, you had the crami3s again, you remember, 
and there was no money left for the bouquet." 

" Yes, I remember," and the great chest heaved 
a deep sigh. 

" You have children — you have lost someone ? " 

" Helas ! no living children, mademoiselle. No, 
no — one daughter we had, but she died twenty 
years ago. She lies over there — where we can see 
her. She would have been thirty-eight years now 
— the fourteenth of this very month ! " 

"Yes, this very month." 

Then the old woman, for the first time, left her 
refuge along the wall ; she crept softly, quietly 
near to her husband to put her withered hand in 
his. His large palm closed over it. Both of the old 
faces turned toward the cemetery ; and in the old 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 65 

eyes a film gathered, as they looked toward all 
that was left of the hope that was buried away 
from them. 

We left them thus, hand in hand, with many 
promises to renew the acquaintance. 

The village was no longer abroad in the streets. 
During our talk in the shop the night had fallen ; 
it had cast its shadow, as trees cast theirs, in 
a long, slow slant. Lights were trembling in the 
dim interiors ; the shrill cries of the children were 
stilled ; only a muffled murmur came through the 
open doors and windows. The villagers were pat- 
tering across the rough floors, talking, as their sa- 
bots clattered heavily over the wooden surface, as 
they washed the dishes, as they covered their fires, 
shoving back the tables and chairs. As we walked 
along, through the nearer windows came the sound 
of steps on the creaking old stairs, then a rustling 
of straw and the heavy fall of weary bodies, as the 
villagers flung themselves on the old oaken beds, 
that groaned as they received their burden. Pres- 
ently all was still. Only our steps resounded 
through the streets. The stars filled the sky ; and 
beneath them the waves broke along the beach. In 
the closely packed little streets the heavy breath- 
ing of the sleeping village broke also in short, 
quick gasps. 

Only we and the night were awake. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

SOME NORMAN LANDLADIES. 

Quite a number of cTiauges 
came about witli our an- 
nexation of an artist and 
his garden. Chief among 
these chang'es was the sur- 
prising discovery of find- 
ing ourselves, at the end of a week, in possession 
of a villa. 

" It's next door," Kenard remarked, in the casual 
way peculiar to artists. " You are to have the 
whole house to yourselves, all but the top floor ; 
the people who own it keep that to live in. 
There's a garden of the right sort, with espaliers, 
also rose-trees, and a tea-house ; quite the right 
sort of thing altogether." 

The unforeseen, in its way, is excellent and ad- 
mirable. De rim^jrevu, surely this is the datsh of 
seasoning — the caviare we all crave in life's some- 
what too monotonous repasts. But as men have 
been known to admire the still-life in wifely char- 
acter, and then repented their choice, marrying 
peace only to court dissension, so we, inconti- 
nently deserting our humble inn chambers to take 
possession of a grander state, in the end found the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 67 

capital of experience drained to pay for our little 
infidelity. 

The owners of the yilla Belle Etoile, onr friend 
announced, he had found greatly depressed ; of 
this, their passing" mood, he had taken such advan- 
tage as only comes to the knowing. " They speak 
of themselves drearily as ' deux pauvres malheu- 
reux ' with this villa still on their hands, and here 
they are almost ' touching June,' as they put it. 
They also gave me to understand that only the 
finest fiowers of the aristocracy had had the honor 
of dwelling in this villa. They have been able, I 
should say, more or less successfully to deflower 
this ' fine fleur ' of some of their gold. But they 
are very meek just now — they were willing to listen 
to reason." 

The " two poor unhappies " were looking sur- 
prisingly contented an hour later, when we went 
in to inspect our possessions. They received us 
with such suave courtesy, that I was quite certain 
Benard's skill in transactions had not played its 
full gamut of capacity. 

Civility is the Frenchman's mask ; he wears it 
as he does his skin — as a matter of habit. But 
courtesy is his costume de hal ; he can only afford 
to don his bravest attire of smiles and gracious- 
ness when his pocket is in holiday mood. Madame 
Fouchet we found in full ball-room toilet ; she was 
wreathed in smiles. Would ces dames give them- 
selves the trouble of entering ? would they see the 
house or the garden first ? w^ould they permit their 
trunks to be sent for ? Monsieur Fouchet, mean- 
while, was making a brave second to his wife's 



68 TEHEE NORMANDY INNS. 

bustling- welcome ; lie was rubbing liis bands vig-- 
orously, a somewhat suspicions action in a French- 
man, I have had occasion to notice, after the com- 
pletion of a bargain. Nature had cast this mild- 
eyed individual for the part of accompanyist in 
the comedy we call life; a role he sometimes 
varied as now, with the office of claqueur, when an 
uncommonly clever proof of madame's talent for 
business drew from him this noiseless tribute of 
applause. His weak, fat contralto called after us, 
as we followed madame's quick steps up the waxed 
stairway; he would be in readiness, he said, to 
show us the garden, " once the chambers were vis- 
ited." 

" It wasn't a real stroke, mesdames, it was only 
a warning ! " was the explanation conveyed to us 
in loud tones, with no reserve of whispered deli- 
cacy, when we expressed regret at monsieur's de- 
tention below stairs ; a partially paralyzed leg, 
dragged painfully after the latter's flabby figure, 
being the obvious cause of this detention. 

The stairway had the line of beauty, describing 
a iDretty curve before its glassy steps led us to a 
narrow entry ; it had also the brevity which is said 
to be the very soul, Vanima viva, of all true wit ; 
but it was quite long and straight enough to' serve 
Madame Fouchet as a stage for a prolonged mono- 
logue, enlivened with much affluence of gesture. 
Fouchet's seizure, his illness, his convalescence, 
and x^resent physical condition — a condition which 
aiopeared to be bristling with the tragedy of dan- 
ger, " un vrai drame d'anxiete " — was graphically 
conveyed to us. The horrors of the long winter 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 69 

also, so sad for a Parisian — " si triste pour la 
Parisienne, ces liivers de province " — together with 
the miseries of her own home life, between this 
paralytic of a husband below stairs, and above, her 
mother, an old lady of eighty, nailed to her sofa 
with gout. " You may thus figure to yourselves, 
mesdames, what a melancholy season is the win- 
ter! And now, with this villa still on our hands, 
and the season already announcing itself, ruin 
stares us in the face, mesdames — ruin ! " 

It was a moving picture. Yet we remained 
strangely unaffected by this tale of woe. Madame 
Pouchet herself, the woman, not the actress, was 
to blame, I think, for our unfeelingness. Some- 
how, to connect woe, ruin, sadness, melancholy, or 
distress, in a word, of any kind with our landlady's 
opulent figure, we found a difiicult acrobatic men- 
tal feat. She joresented to the eye outlines and 
features that could only be likened, in point of 
prosperity, to a Dutch landscape. Like certain of 
the mediaeval saints presented by the earlier de- 
lineators of the martyrs as burning above a slow 
fire, while wearing smiles of purely animal con- 
tent, as if in full enjoyment of the temperature, 
this lady's sufferings Avere doubtless an invisible 
discipline, the hair shirt which her hardened cuti- 
cle felt only to be a pleasurable itching. 

" Voila, mesdames ! " It was with a magnificent 
gesture that madame opened doors and windows. 
The drama of her life was forgotten for the mo- 
ment in the conscious pride of presenting us with 
such a picture as her gay little house offered. 

Inside and out, summer and the sun were bloom- 



70 THREE NORMANDT INNS. 

ing- and shining- with spendthrift luxuriance. The 
salon opened directly on the garden; it would 
have been difficult to determine just where one 
began and the domain of the other ended, with the 
pinks and g-eraniums that nodded in response to 
the peach and pear blossoms in the g-arden. A bit 
of faded Aubusson and a lorint representing- Ma- 
dame Geoifrin's salon in full session, with a poet 
of the period transporting the half-moon grouped 
listeners about him to the point of tears, were evi- 
dences of the refined tastes of our landlady in the 
arts ; only a sentimentalist would have hung- that 
picture in her salon. Other decoration's further 
proved her as belonging to both worlds. The 
chintzes g-ay with g-arlands of roses, with which 
walls, beds, and chairs were covered, revealed the 
mundane element, the woman of decorative tastes, 
possessed of a hidden x^assion for effective back- 
g-rounds. Two or three wooden crucifixes, a prie- 
dieii, and a couiDle of saints in x^laster, went far to 
prove that this excellent bourgeoise had thriftily 
made her peace with Heaven. It was a curious 
mixture of the sacred and the profane. 

Down below, beneath the windows overlooking 
the sea, lay the garden. All the houses fronting 
the cliff had similar little gardens, giving, as the 
French idiom so prettily puts it, upon the sea. 
But compared to these others, ours was as a rose of 
Sharon blooming in the midst of little deserts. 
Benard had been entirely right about this particu- 
lar bit of earth attached to our villa. It was a gem 
of a garden. It was a French garden, and there- 
fore, entirely as a matter of course, it had walls. 



THREE NOEMANDT INKS. 71 

It was as cut ofi" from the rest of the world as if it 
had been a prison or a fortification. 

The Frenchman, above all others, appears to 
have the true sentiment of seclusion, when the so- 
ciety of trees and flowers is to be enjoyed. Next 
to woman, nature is his fetich. True to his na- 
tional taste in dress, he i3refers that both should 
be costumed a la Parisienne ; but as poet and lover, 
it is his instinct to build a wall about his idol, 
that he may enjoy his moments of exioansion un- 
seen and unmolested. This square of earth, for 
instance, was not much larger than the space cov- 
ered by the chamber roof above us ; and yet, with 
the high walls towering- over the rose-stalks, it was 
as secluded as a monk's cloister. We found it, in- 
deed, on later acquaintance, as poetic and delicate- 
ly sensuous a retreat as the romance-writers would 
wish us to believe did those mediaeval connoisseurs 
of comfort, when, with sandalled feet, they i^aced 
their own convent garden-walks. Fouchet was a 
broken-down shopkeeper ; but somewhere hidden 
within, there lurked the soul of a Msecenas; he 
knew how to arrange a feast — of roses. The gar- 
den was a bit of greensward, not much larger 
than a pocket-handkerchief ; but the grass had 
the right emerald hue, and one's feet sank into 
the rich turf as into the velvet of an oriental rug. 
Small as was the enclosure, between the espaliers 
and the flower-beds serpentined minute paths of 
glistening joebbles. Nothing which belonged to 
a garden had been forgotten, not even a pine 
from the tropics, and a bench under the pine 
that was just large enough for two. This lat- 



72 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

ter was an ideal little spot in wliicli to bring- a 
friend or a book. One could sit there and gorge 
one's self with sweets ; a dance was perpetually 
going- on — the gold-and-purple butterflies flutter- 
ing gayly from morning till night ; and the bees 
freighted the air with their buzzing. If one tired 
of perfumes and dancing, there was always music 
to be enjoyed, from a full orchestra. The sea, just 
the other side of the wall of osiers, was always in 
voice, whether sighing or shouting. The larks and 
blackbirds had a predilection for this nest of color, 
announcing their preference loudly in a combat 
of trills. And once or twice, we were quite certain, 
a nightingale with Patti notes had been trying its 
liquid scales in the dark. 

It was in this garden that our acquaintance with 
our landlord deepened into something like friend- 
ship. Monsieur Fouchet was always to be found 
there, tying up the rose-trees, or mending the 
paths, or shearing the bit of turf. 

"3Ionjardin, c'est un pen moi, votes savez — it is my 
pride and my consolation." At the latter word, 
Fouchet was certain to sigh. 

Then we fell to wondering just what grief had 
befallen this amiable person which required Hora- 
tian consolation. Horace had need of rose-leaves 
to embalm his disappointments, for had he not 
cooled his passions by plunging into the bath of 
literature "? Besides, Horace was bitten by the 
modern rabies : he was as restless as an American. 
Wlien at Home was he not always sighing for his 
Sabine farm, and when at the farm always regret- 
ting Eome 1 "But this harmless, innocent-eyed, 



THBEE NORMANDY INNS. 73 

benevolent-browed old man, with his passive 
brains tied up in a foulard, o' morning-s, and his 
bourgeois feet adorned with carpet slippers, what 
g-rief in the -past had bitten his poor soul and left 
its mark still sore ? 

"It isn't monsieur — it is madame who has made 
the past dark," was Renard's comment, when we 
discussed our landlord's probable acquaintance 
with reg-ret — or remorse. 

AVliatever secret of the past may have hovered 
over the Fouchet household, the evil bird had not 
made its nest in madame's breast, that was clear ; 
her smooth, white brow was the sign of a rose-leaf 
conscience ; that dark curtain of hair, looped ma- 
donna-wise over each ear, framed a face as unruffled 
as her conscience. 

She was entirely at peace with her world — and 
with heaven as well, that was certain. Whatever 
her sins, the confessional had purged her. Like 
others, doubtless, she had found a husband and the 
provinces excellent remedies for a damaged repu- 
tation. She lived now in the very odor of sanctity ; 
the cure had a pipe in her kitchen, with something 
more sustaining, on certain bright afternoons. Al- 
though she was daily announcing to us her ap- 
proaching dissolution — " I die, mesdames — I die of 
ennui " — it seemed to me there were still signs, at 
times, of a vigorous resuscitation. The cure's visits 
were wont to produce a deeper red in the deep 
bloom of her cheek ; the mayor and his wife, who 
drank their Sunday coffee in the arbor, brought, 
as did Beatrix's advent to Dante, vita nuova to this 
homesick Parisian. 



74 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

There were otlier pleasures in her small world, 
also, which made life endurable. Bargaining-, 
when one teems with talent, may be as exciting 
as any other form of conquest. Madame's days 
were chiefly passed in imitation of the occupa- 
tion so dear to an earlier, hardier race, that race 
kings have knighted for their powers in dealing 
mightily with their weaker neighbors. Madame, 
it is true, was only a woman, and Yillerville was 
somewhat slimly populated. But in imitation of 
her remote feudal lords, she also fell upon the 
passing stranger, demanding tribute. When the 
stranger did not loass, she keiot her arm in prac- 
tice, so to speak, by extracting the last sou in a 
transaction from a neighbor, or by indulging in a 
drama in which the comedy of insult was matched 
by the tragedy of contempt. 

One of these mortal combats it was my privilege 
to witness. The war arose on our announcement 
to Mere Mouchard, the lady of the inn by the sea, 
of our decision to move next door. To us Mere 
Mouchard presented the unruffled plumage of a 
dove ; her voice also was as the voice of the same, 
mellowed by sucking. Ten minutes later the town 
was assembled to lend its assistance at the en- 
counter between our two landladies. Each stood 
on their res]3ective doorsteps with arms akimbo 
and head thrust forward, as geese protrude head 
and tongue in moments of combat. And it was 
thus, the mere hissed, that her boarders were stolen 
from her — under her very nose — while her back was 
turned, with no more thought of honesty or shame 
than a {%). The word was never uttered. The 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 75 

mere's insult was drowned in a storm of voices ; 
for there came a loud iDrotest from tlie group of 
neighbors. Madame Fouchet, meanwhile, was sus- 
taining her own role with great dignity. Her at- 
titude of self-control could only have been learned 
in a school where insult was an habitual weapon. 
She smiled, an infuriating, exasperating, success- 
ful smile. She showed a set of defiant white teeth, 
and to her proud white throat she gave a boast- 
ful curve. Was it her fault if ces dames knew 
what comfort and cleanliness were ? if they x)re- 
ferred "des chambres garnies avec gout, vraiment ar- 
tistiques" — to rooms fit only for peasants? Ces 
dames had just come from Paris ; doubtless, they 
were not yet accustomed to provincial customs — 
aux moeurs provinciales. Then there were exchanged 
certain melodious acerbities, which ^Droved that 
these ladies had entered the lists on previous oc- 
casions, and that each was well practised in the 
other's methods of warfare. Opportunely, Renard 
appeared on the scene ; his announcement that we 
proposed still to continue taking our repasts with 
the mere, was as oil on the sea of trouble. A rec- 
onciliation was immediately effected, and the 
street as immediately lost all interest in the play, 
the audience melting away as si^eedily as did the 
wrath of the disputants. 

" Le hon D'leu soit loue" cried Madame Fouchet, 
puffing, as she mounted the stairs a few moments 
later — " God be praised " — she hadn't come here 
to the x^rovinces to learn her rights^to be taught 
her alphabet. Mere Mouchard, forsooth, who 
wanted a week's board as indemnity for her loss 



76 THREE NOBMANBY INNS. 

of US ! A week's board — for lodgings scorned by- 
peasants ! 

" Ah, tliese Normans ! what a people, what a 
people ! They would peel the skin off your back ! 
They would sell their children ! They would cheat 
the devil himself ! " 

"You, madame, I presume, are from Paris." 
Madame smiled as she answered, a thin fine smile, 
richly seasoned with scorn. " Ah, mesdames ! All 
the world can't boast of Paris as a birthiolace, un- 
fortunately. I also, I am a Norman, mais je ne 
m'en ficJie 2kis ! Most of my life, however, I've 
lived in Paris, thank God ! " She lifted her head 
as she spoke, and swept her hands about her 
waist to adjust the broad belt, an action preg- 
nant with suggestions. For it was thus conveyed 
to us, delicately, that such a figure as hers was not 
bred on rustic diet ; also, that the Parisian glaze 
had not failed of its effect on the coarser ]Drovin- 
cial clay. 

Meanwhile, below in the garden, her husband 
was meekly tying up his rose-trees. 

Neither of the landladies' husbands had figured 
in the street-battle. It had been a purely Amazo- 
nian encounter, bloodless but bitter. Both the 
husbands of these two belligerent landladies ap- 
peared singularly well trained. Mouchard, indeed, 
occui)ied a comj)aratively humble sphere in his 
wife's menage. He was perpetually to be seen in 
the court-yard, at the back of the house, washing 
dogs, or dishes, in a costume in which the greatest 
economy of cloth compatible with decency had 
been triumphantly solved. His wife ran the house. 



THREE NOBMANBY INNS. 77 

and lie ran the errands, an arrangement which, 
apparently, worked greatly to the satisfaction of 
both. But Mouchard was not the first or the 
second French husband who, on the threshold of 
his connubial experience, had doubtless had his 
role in life appointed to him, filling the same with 
loatient acquiescence to the very last of the lines. 

There is something very touching in the subjec- 
tion of French husbands. In point of meekness 
they may well serve, I think, as models to their 
kind. It is a meekness, however, which does not 
hint of humiliation; for, after all, what humilia- 
tion can there be in being thoroughly understood ? 
The Frenchwoman, by virtue of centuries of ac- 
tivity, in the world and in the field, has become 
an expert in the art of knowing her man; she 
has not worked by his side, under the burn of the 
noon sun, or in the cimmerian darkness of the 
shop-rear, counting the pennies, for nothing. In 
exchanging her illusions for the bald front of fact, 
man himself has had to pay the penalty of this 
mixed gain. She tests him by purely professional 
standards, as man tests man, or as he has tested 
her, when in the ante-matrimonial days he weighed 
her dot in the scale of his need. The French- 
woman and Shakespeare are entirely of one mind ; 
they perceive the great truth of unity in the 
scheme of things : 

" Woman's test is man's taste." 

This is the first among the great truths in the 
feminine grammar of assent. French masculine 
taste, as its criterion, has established the excellent 



78 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

doctrine of utilitarianism. With quick apprehen- 
sion the Frenchwoman has mastered this fact ; 
she has cleverly taken a lesson from ophidian 
habits — she can chang-e her skin, quickly shedding- 
the sentimentalist, when it comes to serious action, 
to don the duller raiment of utility. She has ac- 
cepted her world, in other words, as she finds it, 
with a j)hilosopher's shrug. But the ijhilosopher 
is lined with the logician ; for this system of life 
has accomiDlished the miracle of making its women 
logical ; they have grasped the subtleties of in- 
ductive reasoning. Marriage, for example, they 
know is entered into solely on the principle of 
mutual benefit; it is therefore a partnership, bon; 
now, in partnerships sentiments and the emotions 
are out of ]olace, they only serve to dim the eye ; 
those commodities, therefore, are best convej^ed 
to other markets than the matrimonial one ; for in 
purely commercial transactions one has need of 
perfect clearness of vision, if only to keep one well 
practised in that simple game called looking out 
for one's own interest. In Frenchwomen, the ra- 
tiocinationist is extraordinarily developed; her 
logic penetrates to the core of things. 

Hence it is that Mouchard washes dishes. 

Monsieur Jourdain, in Molieii^e's comedy, who 
expressed such surprise at finding that he had 
been talking prose for forty years without know- 
ing it, was no more amazed than would Mere Mou- 
chard have been had you announced to her that she 
was a logician ; or that her husband's daily occu- 
IDations in the bright little court-yard were the 
result of a system. Yet both facts were true. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 79 

In that process we now know as the survival of 
the fittest, the mere's capacity had snuffed out her 
weaker spouse's incompetency ; she had taken her 
place at the helm, because she belonged there by 
virtue of natural fitness. There were no tender il- 
lusions which would sufi:er,iu seeing the husband 
allotted to her, probably by her parents and the dot 
system, relegated to the ignominy of passing his 
days washing dishes — dishes which she cooked 
and served — dishes, it should be added, which she 
was entirely conscious were cooked by the hand of 
genius, and which she garnished with a sauce and 
served with a smile, such as only issue from French 
kitchens. 




CHAPTEE VIII. 

THE QUAKTIER LATIN ON THE BEACH, 

The beacli, one morning', we 
found suddenly peopled with 
artists. It was a little city of 
tents. Beneath striped awn- 
ings and white umbrellas a 
multitude of flat-capped heads sat immovably still 
on their three-legged stools, or darted hither and 
thither. Paris was evidently beginning to empty 
its studios ; the Normandy beaches now furnished 
the better model. 

One morning we were in luck. A certain blonde 
beard had counted early in the day on having the 
beach to himself. He had posed his model in the 
open daylight, that he might paint her in the 
sun. He had placed her, seated on an edge of sea- 
wall ; for a background there was the curve of the 
yellow sands and the flat breadth of the sea, with 
the droop of the sky meeting the sea miles away. 
The girl was a slim, fair shape, with long, thin legs 
and delicately moulded arms; she was dressed 
in the fillet and chiton of Greece. During her 
long poses she was as immovable as an antique 
marble ; her natural grace and prettiness were 
transfigured into positive beauty by the flowing 
lines and the pink draiaeries of her Attic costume. 



THBEE EOBMANDY INNS. 81 

Seated tlius, slie was a breatliing- embodiment of 
the best Greek period. When the rests came, her 
jump from the wall landed her square on her 
feet and at the latter end of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. Once free, she bounded from her jjerch on 
the high sea-wall. In an instant she had tucked 
her tinted draperies within the slender g-irdle ; 
her sandalled feet must be untrammelled, she 
was about to take her run on the beach. Soon 
she was iielting", irreverently, her painter with a 
shower of loose jDebbles. Next she had challenged 
him to a race ; when she reached the goal, her 
thin, bare arms were uplifted as she clapped and 
shouted for glee ; the Quartier Latin in her blood 
was having its moment of high revelry in the 
morning sun. 

This little grisette, running about free and un- 
shackled in her loose draperies, quite unabashed 
in her state of semi-nudity— -gay, reckless, wooing 
]pleasure on the wing, surely she might have posed 
as the embodied archetype of France itself. So has 
this ]pagan among modern nations borrowed some- 
thing of the antique sioirit of wantonness. Along 
with its theft of the Attic charm and grace, it has 
captured, also, something of its sublime indiffer- 
ence ; in the very teeth of the dull modern world, 
France has laughed opinion to scorn. 

At noon the tents were all deserted. It was at 
this hour that the inn garden was full. The gay- 
ety and laughter overflowed the walls. Everyone 
talked at once ; the orders were like a rattle of ar- 
tillery — painting for hours in the open air gives a 
fine edge to appetite, and j)atience is never the 



82 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

true twin of hunger. Everything but tlie potage 
was certain to be on time. 

Golinette, released from lier Greek draperies, 
with, her Parisian bodice had recovered the blague 
of the studios. 

" Sacre nom de — on reste done claquemure ainsi 
toute la matinee ! And all for an omelette — a 
puny, good-for-nothing- omelette. And you ■ — 
you've lost your tongue, it seems % " And a shrill 
voice iDierced the air as Golinette gave her painter 
the hint of her jorodding elbow. With the appear- 
ance of the omelette the reign of good humor 
would return. Everything then w^ent as merrily 
as that marriage-bell which, apparently, is the 
only one absent in Bohemia's gay chimes. 

These arbors had obviously been built out of 
pure charity: they appeared to have been con- 
structed on the principle that since man, painting 
man, is often forced to live alone, from economic 
necessity, it is therefore only the commonest char- 
ity to provide him with the proper surroundings 
for eating a deux. The little tables beneath the 
kiosks were strictly tete-a-tete tables; even the 
chairs, like the visitors, appeared to come only in 
couples. 

The Frenchman has been reproached with' the 
sin of ingratitude ; has been convicted, indeed, as 
possessed of more of that pride that comes late — 
the day after the gift of bounty has been given — 
than some other of his fellow-mortals. Yet here 
were a comiDany of Frenchmen — and French- 
women — proving in no ordinary fashion their 
equipment in this rare virtue. It was early in 



THREE NOBMANDY INNS. 83 

May ; up yonder, where the Seine flows beneath 
the Parisian bridges, the ionise of the gay Paris 
world was beating in time to the spring in the air. 
Yet these artists had deserted the asphalt of the 
boulevards for the cobbles of a Tillage street, the 
delights of the cafe chantant had been exchanged 
for the miracle of the moon rising over the sea, 
and for the song of the thrush in the bush. 

The Frenchman, more easily and with simpler 
art than any of his modern brethren, can change 
the prose of our dull, practical life into poetry ; he 
can turn lyrical at a moment's notice. He pos- 
sesses the power of transmuting the commonplace 
into the idyllic, by merely clapping on his cap 
and turning his back on the haunts of men. He 
has retained a singular — an almost ideal sensitive- 
ness, of mental cuticle — such acuteness of sensa- 
tion, that a journey to a field will oftentimes yield 
him all the flavor of a long voyage, and a sudden 
introduction to a forest, the rapture that commonly 
comes only with some unwonted aspect of nature. 
Perhaps it is because of this natural poet indwell- 
ing in a Frenchman, that makes him content to 
remain so much at home. Surely the extraordi- 
nary is the costly necessity for barren minds ; the 
richly-endowed can see the beauty that lies the 
other side of their own door-step. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

A NORMAN HOUSEHOLD. 

__.-_ -, Theee were two paths in tlie 
■j village tliat were well 
worn. One was that 
which led the village up 
into the fields. The other 
was the one that led the 
tillers of the soil down 
I s, I into the village, to the 

i' - I door-step of the justice of 

t ,;jL the peace. 

A good Norman is no 
Norman who has not a lawsuit on hand. 

Anything will serve as a jsretext for a quarrel. 
No sum of money is so small as not to warrant 
a breaking of the closest blood-ties, if thereby 
one's rights may be secured. Those beautifuh 
stripes of rye, barley, corn, and wheat up yonder 
in the fields, that melt into one another like sea- 
tones — down here on the benches before the juge 
de paix — what quarrels, what hatreds, what evil 
passions these few acres of land have brought 
their owners, facing each other here like so many 
demons, ready to spring at the others' throats ! 
Brothers on these benches forget they are brothers, 
and sisters that thev have suckled the same mother. 




A DErAUTUKE— YTLLEKVILI.E. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 85 

Two more j^ards of tlie soil that should have been 
Fillette's instead of Jeanne's, and the grave will 
enclose both before the clenched fist of either is 
relaxed, and the last sous in the stocking- will 
be spent before the war between their respective 
lawj^ers will end. 

Many and many were the tales told us of the 
domestic tragedies, born of wills mal-administered, 
of the passions of hate, ambition, and despair kept 
at a white heat because half the villag-e owned, up 
in the fields, what the other half coveted. Many, 
also, and fierce were the heated faces we looked in 
upon at the justice's door, in the very throes of the 
g-reat moment of facing- justice,and their adversary. 

Our own way, by preference, took us up into 
the fields. Here, in the broad open, the farms lay 
scattered like fortifications over a plain. Doubt- 
less, in the earlier warlike days they had served as 
such. « 

Once out of the narrow Yillerville streets, and 
the pastoral was in full swing-. 

The sea along this coast was not in the least in- 
sistant ; it allowed the shore to play its full g-amut 
of power. There were no tortured shapes of trees 
or plants, or barren wastes, to attest the fierce ways 
of the sea with the laud. Reminders of the sea 
and of the life that is lived in ships were conspic- 
uous features everywhere, in the pastoral scenes 
that began as soon as the town ended. AVomen 
carrying sails and nets toiled through the green 
aisles of the roads and lanes. Fishing-tackle hung- 
in company with tattered jerseys outside of huts 
hidden in grasses and honeysuckle. The shep- 



86 THREE N0B3IANDT INNS. 

herclesses, as tliey followed the slieep inland into 
the heart of the pasture land, were busy netting- 
the coarse cages that trap the finny tribe. Long- 
limbed, vigorous-faced, these shepherdesses were 
Biblical figures. In their coarse homespun, with 
only a skirt and a shirt, with their bare legs, 
half -open bosoms, and the fine poise of their blond 
heads, theirs was a beauty that commanded the 
homage accorded to a rude virginity. 

In some of the fields, in one of our many walks, 
the grass was being cut. In these fields the groups 
of men and women were thickest. The long 
scythes were swung mightily by both ; the voices, 
a gay treble of human speech, rose above the me- 
tallic swish of the sharp blades cutting into the 
succulent grasses. 

The fat pasture lands rose and sank in undula- 
tions as rounded as the nascent breasts of a young 
Greek maiden. A medley of color X3layed its 
charming variations over fields, over acres of pop- 
pies, over plains of red clover, over the backs of 
spotted cattle, mixing, mingling, blending a thou- 
sand twists and turns into one exquisite, harmoni- 
ous whole. There was no discordant note, not one 
harsh contrast ; even the hay-ricks seemed to have 
been modelled rather than pitched into shape; 
their slox3ing sides and finely pointed apexes giv- 
ing them the dignity of structural intent. 

AVhy should not a peasant, in blouse and sabots, 
with a grinning idiot face, have put the picture 
out ? But he did not. He was walking, or rather 
waddling, toward us, between two green walls that 
rose to be arched by elms that hid the blue of 



THBEE NORMANDY INNS. 87 

the sky. This lane was the kind of lane one sees 
only in Devonshire and in Normandy. There are 
lanes and lanes, as, to quote our friend the cob- 
bler, there are cures and cures. But only in these 
above-named countries can one count on walk- 
ing straight into the heart of an emerald, if one 
turns from the high-road into a lane. The trees, 
in these Devonshire and Normandy by-paths, have 
ways of their own of vaulting into space; the 
hedges are thicker, sweeter, more vocal with in- 
sect and song notes than elsewhere ; the roadway 
itself is softer to the foot, and narrower — only two 
are expected to walk therein. 

It was through such a lane as this that the 
coarse, animal shape of a peasant was walking 
toward us. His legs and body were horribly 
twisted ; the dangling arms and crooked limbs ap- 
l^eared as if caricaturing the gnarled and tortured 
boughs and trunks of the apx)le-trees. The peas- 
ant's blouse was filthy ; his sabots were reeking 
with dirty straw; his feet and ankles, bare, were 
blacker than the earth over which he was pain- 
fully crawling; and on his face there was the 
vacuous, sensuous deformity of the smile idiocy 
wears. Again I ask, why did he not disfigure this 
fair scene, and put out something of the beauty 
of the day % Is it because the French peasant 
seems now to be an inseparable adjunct of the 
Frenchman's landscape ? That even deformity 
has been so handled by the realists as to make us 
see beauty in ugliness ? Or is it that, as moderns, 
we are all bitten by the rabies of the picturesque ; 
that all things serve and are acceptable so long as 



88 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

we have our necessary note of contrast ? Certain 
it is tliat it appears to be tlie peasant's blouse that 
perpetuates the Salon, and perhaps — who knows ? 
— when over-emig"ration makes our own American 
farmer too poor to wear a boiled shirt when he 
ploughs, we also may develop a school of land- 
scape, with figures. 

Meanwhile the walk and the talk had made 
Charm thirsty. "Why should we not go," she 
asked, " across the next field, into that farm-house 
yonder, and beg for a glass of milk "? " 

The farm-house might have been waiting for us, 
it was so still. Even the grasses along its sloping 
roof nodded, as if in welcome. The house, as we 
approached it, together with its out-buildings, 
assumed a more imposing aspect than it had from 
the road. Its long, low fagade, broken here and 
there by a miniature window or a narrow doorway, 
ajapeared to stretch out into interminable length 
beneath the towering beeches and the snarl of the 
peach-tree boughs. 

The stillness was ominous — it was so profound. 

The only human in sight was a man in a distant 
field ; he was raking the ploughed ground. He was 
too far away to hear the sound of our voices. 

" Perhaps the entire establishment is in the 
fields," said Charm, as we neared the house. 

Just then a succession of blows fell on our ear. 

" Someone is beating a mattress within, we shall 
have our glass after all." 

We knocked. But no one answered our knock. 

The beating continued ; the sound of the blows 
fell as regularly as if machine-impelled. Then a 



THBEE NORMANDY INNS. 89 

cry rose up ; it was the cry of a young", strong voice, 
and it was followed by a low wail of anguish. 

The door stood half-open, and this is what we 
saw: A man — tall, strong, powerful, with a face 
purple with passion — bending over the crouching 
form of a girl, whose slender body was quivering-, 
shrinking, and writhing as the man's hand, armed 
with a short stick, fell, smiting her defenceless 
back and limbs. 

Her wail went on as each blow fell. 

In a corner, crouched in a heap, sitting on her 
heels, was a woman. She was clapping her hands. 
Her eyes were starting from her head ; she clapped 
as the blows came, and above the girl's wail her 
strong, exultant voice arose — calling out : 

" Tue-la ! Tue-Ja ! " 

It was the voice of a triumphant fury. 

The backs of all these jaeople were turned upon 
us ; they had not seen, much less heard, our en- 
trance. 

Someone else had seen us, however. A man with 
a rake over his shoulder rushed in through the 
open door ; it was the peasant we had seen in the 
field. He seized Charm by the arm, and then my 
own hand w^as grasped as in a grip of iron. Be- 
fore we had time for resistance he had pushed us 
out before him into the entry, behind the outer 
door. This latter he slammed. He put his broad 
back against it ; then he dropiaed his rake and be- 
gan to mop his face, violently, with a filthy hand- 
kerchief he plucked from beneath his blouse. 

" Que chance ! Nom de Dieu, que chance ! Je v'- 
avions vue, I saw you just in time — ^just in time — " 



90 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

" But, I must g"o in — I wish to go back ! " But 
Charm might as well have attempted to move a 
XDillar of stoue. 

The peasant's coarse, good-humored face broke 
into a broad laugh. 

" Pardon, mam'selle — fn hougeons ^:>as. Not' 
maitree' encolere ; c' son jour — -fautpas Virriter — aiC- 
jou'lmd." 

Meantime, during the noise of our forced exit 
and the ensuing dialogue, the scene within had 
evidently changed in character, for the blows had 
ceased. Steps could be heard crossing and re- 
crossing the wooden floor. A creaking sound suc- 
ceeded to the beating — it was the creaking and 
groaning of a wooden staircase bending beneath 
the weight of a human figure. In an npper cham- 
ber there came the sound of a quiet, subdued sob- 
bing now. They were the sobs of the girl. She 
at least had been released. 

A face, cruel, pinched, hardened, with flaming 
agate eyes and an insolent smile, stood looking 
out at us through the dulled, dusty window-pane. 
It was the fury. 

Meanwhile the i3easant was still defending his 
post. A moment later the tall frame of the farmer 
suddenly filled the open doorway. The peasant 
well-nigh fell into his master's arms. The farm- 
er's face was still terrible to look upon, but the 
purple stain of passion was now turned to red. 
There was a mocking- insolence in his tone as he 
addressed us, that matched with the woman's un- 
concealed glee. 

" Will you not come in, mesdames ? Will you 



TJIBEE NORMANDY INNS. 91 

not rest a while after your long walk ? " On tlio 
man's hard face there was still the shadow of a 
sinister cruelty as he waved his hand toward the 
room within. 

The peasant's good-humored, loutish smile, and 
his stupid, cow-like eyes, by contrast, w^ere the 
eyes and smile of a benevolent deity. 

The^ smile told us we were right, as we slunk 
away toward the open road. The head kept nod- 
ding approval as we vanished presently beneath 
the shade of the protecting trees. 

The fields, as we swept rapidly past them, were 
as bathed in peace as when we had left them ; 
there was even a more voluptuous content abroad : 
for the twilight was wrapping about the land- 
scape its poppied dusk of gloom and shadow. 
Above, the birds were swirling in sweei3ing circles, 
raining down the ecstasy of their night-song ; still 
above, far beyond them, across a zenith pure, 
transparent, ineffably pink, illumined wisps of 
clouds were trailing their scarf-like shapes. It 
was a scene of beatific peace. Across the fields 
came the sound of a distant bell. It was the Ari- 
gelus. The xoloughmen stopped to doff their hats, 
the women to bend their heads in prayer. 

And in our ears, louder than the vibrations of 
the hamlet bell, louder than the bird-notes and 
the tumult of the voluptuous insect whirr, there 
rang the thud, thud of cruel blows falling on quiv- 
ering human fiesh. 

The curtain that hid the life of the peasant- 
farmer had indeed been lifted. 



CHAPTEE X. 



ERNESTINE. 




'Ah, mesdames, what will 
yon have ? The French 
peasant is like that. When 
he is in a rage nothing 
stops him — he beats any- 
thing-, everything ; what- 
ever his hand encounters 
mnst suffer when he is an- 
gry ; his wife, his child, 
his servant, his horse, they are all alike to him 
when he sees red." 

Monsieur Fouchet was tying up his rose-trees ; 
we were watching him from our seat on the greeji 
bench. Here in the garden, beneath the blue vault, 
the roses were drooping from very heaviness of 
glory ; they gave forth a scent that made the head 
swim. It was a healthy, virile intoxication, how- 
ever, the salt in the air steadying one's nerves. ' 

Nature, not being mortal and cursed with a con- 
science, had risen that morning in a mood for ca- 
rousal ; at this hour of noon she had reached the 
point of ecstatic stupor. No state of trance was 
ever so exquisite. The air was swooning, but how 
delicate its gasps, as if it fell away into calm ! 
How adorably blue the sky in its debauch of sun- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 93 

lit ether ! The sea, too, although it reeled slight- 
1}', unsteadily rising" only to fall away, what a radi- 
ance of color it maintained ! Here in the garden 
the drowsy air would lift a flower petal, as some 
dreamer sunk in hasheesh slumber might touch a 
loved hand, only to let it slip away in nerveless 
impotence. Never had the charm of this Nor- 
mandy sea-coast been as compelling; never had 
the divine softness of this air, this harmonious 
marriage of earth-scents and sea-smells seemed as 
perfect ; never before had the delicacy of the foli- 
age and color-gradations of the sky as triumph- 
antly proved that nowhere else, save in France, 
can nature be at once sensuous and poetic. 

We looked for something other than pure enjoy- 
ment from this golden moment ; we hoped its 
beauty would help us to soften our landlord. This 
was the moment we had chosen to excite his sym- 
pathies, also to gain counsel from him concerning 
the tragedy we had witnessed the day before. He 
listened to our tale with evident interest, but there 
was a disappointing coolness in his eye. As the 
narrative proceeded, the brutality of the situation 
failed to sting him to even a mild form of indig- 
nation. He went on tying his rose-trees, his 
ardor expending itself in choice snippings of the 
stray stalks and rebellious tendrils. 

" This Guichon," he said, after a brief moment, 
in the tone that goes with the pursuance of an 
occupation that has become a passion. " This 
Guichon — I know him. He is a hard man, but no 
harder than many others, and he has had his losses, 
which don't always soften a man. ' Qui terre a 



94 THREE NORM AND T INNS. 

guerre «,' Moliere says, and Guiclion has had many 
lawsuits, losing them all. He has been twice mar- 
ried ; that was his daughter by his first wife he 
was touching up like that. He married only the 
other day Madame Tier, a rich woman, a neighbor, 
their lands join. It was a great match for him, 
and she, the wife, and his daughter don't hit it 
off, it appears. There was some talk of a marriage 
for the girl lately ; a good match presented itself, 
but the girl will have none of it ; perhaps that ac- 
counts for the beating." 

A rose, overblown with its fulness of splendor, 
dropped in a shower at Fouchet's feet just then. 

" Tiens, elle est Jinie, celle-la," he cried, with an 
accent of regret, and he stooped over the fallen 
jjetals as if they had been the remains of a friend. 
Then he sighed as he swept the mass into his 
broad palm. 

" Come, let us leave him to the funeral of his 
roses ; he hasn't the sensibilities of an insect : " 
and Charm grasped my arm to lead me over the 
turf, across the gravel paths, toward the tea-house. 

This tottering structure had become one of our 
favorite retreats ; in the poetic mise- en- scene of the 
garden it played the part of Kuin. It was ab- 
surdly, ridiculously out of repair ; its gaping beams 
and the sunken, dejected floor could only be due 
to intentional neglect. Fouchet evidently had 
grasped the secrets of the laws of contrast ; the 
deflected angle of the tumbling roof made the 
clean-cut garden beds doubly true. Nature had 
had compassion on the aged little building, how- 
ever ; the clustering, fragrant vines, in their hatred 



THREE NOBMANDT INNS. 95 

of nudity, had invested tlie prose of a wreck with 
the poetry of drapery. The tip-tilted settee be- 
neath the odorous roof became, in time, our chosen 
seat ; from that perch we could overlook the garden- 
walls, the beach, the curve of the shore, the grasses 
and hollyhocks in our neighbor's garden, the latter 
startlingly distinct against the great arch of the 
sky. 

It was here Kenard found us an hour later. To 
him, likewise, did Charm narrate our extraordinary 
experience of yesterday, with much adjunct of fiery 
comment, embellishment of gesture, and imitative 
pose. 

"Ye gods, what a scene to i^aint! You were in 
luck — ^in luck ; why wasn't I there 1 " was Eenard's 
tribute to human pity. 

" Oh, you are all alike, all — nothing moves you 
— you haven't common human sympathies — you 
haven't the rudiments of a heart ! You are terri- 
ble — all of you — terrible ! " A moment after she 
had left us, as if the narrowness of the little house 
stifled her. With long, swinging steps she loassed 
out, to air her indignation, apparently, beneath the 
wall of the espaliers. 

" Splendid creature, isn't she ? " commented Ke- 
nard, following the long lines of the girl's flut- 
tering* muslin gown, as he plucked at his mus- 
tache. . " She should always wear white and gold 
— what is that stuff ? — and be lit up like that with 
a kind of g^oddess-like anger. She is wrong, how- 
ever," he went on, a moment later ; " those of us 
who live here aren't really barbarians, only we get 
used to things. It's the peasants themselves that 



96 THREE NOBMANDY INNS. 

force us ; they wouldn't stand interference. A 
peasant is a kind of king on his own domain ; he 
does anything- he likes, short of murder, and he 
doesn't always stop at that." 

"But surely the Government — at least their 
Church, oug-ht to teach them " 

" Oh, their Church ! they laugh at their cures — 
till they come to die. He's a heathen, that's what 
the French peasant is — there's lots of the middle 
ages abroad up there in the country. Along here, 
in the coast villages, the nineteenth century has 
crept in a bit, humanizing them, but i]iefonds is 
always the same ; they're by nature avaricious, 
sordid, cruel ; they'll do anything for money ; there 
isn't anything sacred for them except their 
pocket." 

A few days later, in our friend the cobbler we 
found a more sympathetic listener. " Dame ! I 
also used to beat my wife," he said, contempla- 
tively, as he scratched his herculean head, "but 
that was when I was a Christian, when I went to 
confession ; for the confessional was made for that, 
dest pour laver le linge sale des consciences, ga " (in- 
terjecting his epigram). " But now — now that I am 
a free-thinker, I have ceased all that ; I don't beat 
her," pointing to his old wife, " and neither do I 
drink or swear." 

" It's true, he's good — he is, now," the old wife 
nodded, with her slit of a smile ; " but," she added, 
quickly, as if even in her husband's religious past 
there had been some days of glory, "he was al- 
ways just — even then — when he beat me." 

" Oest tres femme, Qa — hein, mademoiselle ? " And 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 97 

the cobbler cocked Lis head in critical pose, with 
a philosopher's smile. 

The result of the interview, however, althongh 
not entirely satisfactory, was illuminating-, besides 
this light which had been thrown on the cobbler's 
reformation. For the cobbler was a cousin, dis- 
tant in point of kinship, but still a cousin, of the 
brutal farmer and father. He knew all the points 
of the situation, the chief of which was, as Fouchet 
had hinted, that the g-irl had refused to wed the 
hon 2^cirt'i,, who was a connection of the step-mother. 
As for the step -mother's murderous outcry, " Kill 
her ! kill her ! " the cobbler refused to take a dra- 
matic view of this outburst. 

" In such moments, you understand, one loses 
one's head ; brutality always intoxicates ; she was 
a little drunk, you see." 

When we proposed our modest little scheme, 
that of sending- for the girl and taking her, for a 
time at least, into our service, merely as a change 
of scene, the cobbler had found nothing but ad- 
miration for the project. " It wdll be perfect, 
mesdames. They, the parents, will ask nothing 
better. To have the girl out at service, away, and 
yet not disgracing them by taking a place with 
any other farmer ; yes, they will like that, for they 
are rich, you see, and wealth always respects it- 
self. Ah, 5^es, it's perfect ; I'll arrange all that — 
all the details." 

Two days later the result of the arrangement 
stood before us. She was standing with her arms 
crossed, her fingers clasping her elbows — with her 
very best peasant manner. She was neatly, and, 



98 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

for a peasant, almost fasliionably attired in her 
holiday dress — a short, black skirt, white stock- 
ings, a flowery kerchief crossed over her broad 
bosom, and on her pretty hair a richly tinted blue 
foulard. She was very well di'essed for a peasant, 
and, from the point of view of two travellers, of 
about as much use as a plough. 

" It's a beautiful scheme, and it's as dramatic as 
the fifth act of a play ; but what shall we do with 
her ? " 

" Oh," rex^lied Charm, carelessly, " there isn't 
anything" in particular for her to do. I mean to 
buy her a lot of clothes, like those she has on, and 
she can walk about in the garden or in the fields." 

"Ah, I see; she's to be a kind of a perambu- 
lating figure-piece " 

" Yes, that's about it. I dare say she will be 
very useful at sunset, in a dim street ; so few xoeas- 
ants wear anything approaching to costume now- 
adays." 

Ernestine herself, however, as we soon discov- 
ered, had an entirely different conception of her 
vocation. She was a vigorous, active young 
woman, with the sap of twenty summers in her 
lusty young veins. Her energies soon found vent 
in a continuous round of domestic excitements. 
There w^ere windows and floors that cried aloud to 
Heaven to be scrubbed ; there were holes in the 
sheets to make mam'zelle's lying between them 
une Jionfe, une vraie Jionte. As for Madame Fouchet's 
little weekly bill, Bieti de Dieic, it was filled with 
such extortions as to make the very angels weep. 
Madame and Ernestine did valiant battle over 



THBEE NOBMANDY INNS. 99 

those bills thereafter. Ernestine was laossessed of 
the conrag'e of a true martyr ; she could suffer and 
submit to the scourge, in the matter of loersonal 
persecution, for the religion of her own convic- 
tions ; but in the service of her rescuer, she could 
fight with the fierceness of a common soldier. 

" When Norman meets Norman " Charm be- 
gan one day, the sound of voices, in a high treble 
of anger, coming in to us through the windows. 

But Ernestine was knocking at the door, with a 
note in her hand. 

" An answer is asked, mesdames," she said, in a 
voice of honey, as she dropped her low courtesy. 

This was the missive : 



ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD TO 
HONFLEUR AND TROUVILLE. 



CHAPTEE XI. 



TO AN OLD MANOK. 



"Will ces dames join me in a 
marauding expedition ? Like 
the poet Villon, I am abont to 
turn marauder, liouse-breaker, 
tliief. I shall hope to end the 
excursion by one act, at least, 
of hig'hway robbery. I shall 
lose courag-e without the enliv- 
ening- presence of ces dames. 
AVe will start when the day is 
at its best, we will return when 
the moon smiles. In case of 
finding none to rob, the coach 
of the desperadoes will be gar- 
risoned with provisions ; Henri will accomijany us 
as counsellor, purveyor, and bearer of arms and 
costumes. The carriage for ces f/«me.s will stox) the 
way at the hour of eleven. 

" I have the honor to sign myself their humble 
servant and co-conspirator. 

" John Eenard." 




" This, in plain English," was Charm's laconic 
translation of this note, " means that he wishes us 
to be ready at eleven for the excursion to P , 



104: THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

to spend the day, you may remember, at that old 
manoir. He wants to paint in a background, he 
said yesterday, while we stroll about and look at 
the old place. What shall I wear "? " 

In an hour we were on the road. 

A jaunty yellow cart, laden with a girl on the 
front seat ; with a man, tawny of mustache, broad 
of shoulder, and dark of eye, with face shining to 
match the spring in the air and that fair face be- 
side him; laden also with another lady on the 
back seat, beside whom, upright and stiff, with 
folded arms, sat Henri, costumer, valet, cook, and 
groom. It was in the latter capacity that Henri 
was now posing. The role of groom was uppermost 
in his orderly mind, although at intervals, when 
his foot chanced to touch a huge luncheon-basket 
with which the cart was also laden, there were be- 
traying signs of anxiety ; it was then that the chef 
crept back to life. This spring in the air was all 
very well, but how would it affect the sauces 1 
This great question was written on Henri's brow 
in a network of anxious wrinkles. 

" Henri," I remarked, as we were wheeling down 
the roadway, " I am quite certain you have put up 
enough luncheon for a regiment." 

" Madame has said it, for a regiment ; Monsieur 
Renard, when he works, eats with the hunger of a 
wolf." 

" Henri, did you get in all the rags ? " This 
came from Renard on the front seat, as he plied 
his steed with the whij). 

" The costume of Monsieur le Marquis, and also 
of Madame la Marquise de Pompadour, are be' 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 105 

neath my feet in the valise, Monsieur Kenarcl. I 
have the sword between my leg-s," replied Henri, 
the costumer coming- to the surface long- enong-h 
to readjust the sword. 

" Capital fellow, Henri, never forgets anything-," 
said Eenard, in Engiish. 

" Couldn't we offer a libation or something, on 

such a morning- " 

'• On such a morning," interrupted the painter, 
" one should be seated next to a charming young- 
lady who has the genius to wear Nile green and 
white ; even a painter with an Honorable Mention 
behind him and fame still ahead, in spite of the 
Mention, is satisfied. You know a Greek deity 
was nothing to a painter, modern, and of the 
French school, in point of fastidiousness." 

"Nonsense! it's the American woman who is 
fastidious, when it comes to clothes." 

Meanwhile, there was one of the party who was 
looking at the road ; that also was arrayed in Nile 
green and white; the tall trees also held umbrel- 
las above us, but these coverings were woven of 
leaves and sky. This bit of roadway appeared to 
have slipped down from the upper country, and to 
have carried much of the upper country with it. 
It was highway posing as pure rustic. It had 
brought all its pastoral paraphernalia along. Noth- 
ing had been forgotten: neither the hawthorn 
and the osier hedges, nor the tree-trunks, suddenly 
grown modest at sight of the sea, burying their 
nudity in nests of vines, nor the trick which elms 
and beeches have, of growing- arches in the sky. 
Timbered farm-houses were here, also tliatched 



106 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

huts, to make the next villa-g-ate g-ain in stateli- 
ness ; apple orchards were dotted about with such 
a knowing air of wearing the long" line of the At- 
lantic girdled about their gnarled trunks, that one 
could not believe pure accident had carried them 
to the edge of the sea. There were several miles 
of this driving along beneath these green aisles. 
Through the screen of the hedges and the crowd- 
ed tree-trunks, picture succeeded jpicture ; bits of 
the sea were caught between slits of cliff; farm- 
houses, huts, and villas lay smothered in blossoms; 
above were heights whereon poplars seemed to 
shiver in the sun, as they wrapped about them their 
shroud-like foliage ; meadows slipj^ed away from 
the heights, plunging seaward, as if wearying for 
the ocean ; and through the whole this line of 
green roadway threaded its path with sinuous 
grace, serpentining, coiling, braiding in land and 
sea in one harmonious, inextricable blending of 
incomparable beauty. One could quite compre- 
hend, after even a short acquaintance with this 
road, that two gentlemen of Paris, as difficult to 
please as Daubigny and Isabey, should have seen 
points of excellence in it. 

There are all sorts of ways of being a painter. 
Perhaps as good as any, if one cares at all about a 
trifling matter like beauty, is to know a good 
thing when one sees it. That poet of the brush, 
Daubigny, not only was gifted with this very un- 
usual talent in a painter, but a good thing could 
actually be entrusted in his hands after its dis- 
covery. And herein, it appears to me, lies all the 
difference between good and bad painting ; not 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 107 

only is an artist — any artist — to be judged by what 
he sees, but also by what he does with a fact after 
he's acquired it — whether he turns it into poetry 
or prose. 

I might incautiously have sprung these views 
on the artist on the front seat, had he not wisely 
forestalled my outburst by one of his own. 

"By the way," he broke in; "by the way, I'm 
not doing my duty as cicerone. There's a church 
near here — we're coming to it in a moment — famous 
— eleventh or twelfth century, romanesque style 
— yes — that's right, although I'm somewhat shaky 
when it comes to architecture — and an old manoir, 
museum now, with lots of old furniture in it — in 
the manoir, I mean." 

" There's the church now. Oh, let us stop ! " 

In point of fact there were two churches be- 
fore us. There was one of ivy : nave, roof, aisles, 
walls, and conic-shaped top, as perfectly defined 
in green as if the beautiful mantle had been cut 
and fitted to the hidden stone structure. Every 
few moments the mantle would be lifted by the 
light breeze, as might a priest's vestment ; it 
would move and waver, as if the building were a 
human frame, changing its posture to ease its 
long standing. Between this church of stone 
and this church of vines there were signs of the 
fight that had gone on for ages between them. 
The stones were obviously fighting decay, fight- 
ing ruin, fighting annihilation ; the vines were also 
struggling, but both time and the sun. were on 
their side. The stone edifice was now, it is true, 
as Renard told us, protected by the Government 



108 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

— ^it was classed as a " monument Mstorique "— 
but the church of greens was protected by the 
g"od of nature, and seemed to laugh aloud, as if 
with conscious gleeful strength. This gay, tri- 
umphant laugh was reflected, as if to emphasize 
its mockery of man's work, in the tranquil waters 
of a little pond, lily-leaved, garlanded in bushes, 
that lay hidden beyond the roadway. Through 
the interstices of the vines one solitary window 
from the tower, like a sombre eye, looked down 
into the pond ; it saw there, reflected as in a mir- 
ror, the old, the eternal picture of a dead ruin 
clasped by the arms of living beauty. 

This Criqueboeuf church presents the ideal pic- 
turesque accessories. It stands at the corner of 
two meeting roadways. It is set in an ideal iDas- 
toral frame — a frame of sleeping fields, of waving 
tree-tops, of an enchanting, indescribable snarl of 
bushes, vines, and wild flowers. In the adjoining 
fields, beneath the tree -boughs, ran the long, low 
line of the ancient manoir — now turned into a 
museum. 

We glanced for a few brief moments at the col- 
lection of antiquities assembled beneath the old 
roof — at the Henry II. chairs, at the PomiDadour- 
wreathed cabinets, at the long rows of panels on 
which are presented the whole history of France — 
the latter an amazing record of the industry of a 
certain Dr. Le Goupils. 

" Criqueboeuf doesn't exactly hide its light un- 
der a bushel, you kuow, although it doesn't crown 
a hill. No end of people know it ; it sits for its 
portrait, I should say at least twice a week regu- 




^^/ ^' 




,', -i^' 










CKIQCEBCEUF CHURCH. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 109 

larly, on an average, during- the season. Engiisli 
water-colorists go mad over it — tliey cross over on 
purpose to ' do ' it, and they do it extremely badly, 
as a rule." 

This was Renard's last comment of a biographi- 
cal and critical nature, concerning the " historical 
monument," as we reseated ourselves to pursue 
our way to P . 

" Why don't you show them how it can be 
done ? " 

"Would," coolly returned Renard, "if it were 
worth while, but it isn't in my line. Henri, did 
you bring any ice ? " 

Henri, I had noticed, when we had reseated our- 
selves in the cart, had greeted us with an air of 
silent sadness; he clearly had not approved of 
ruins that interfered with the business of the 
day. 

" Oui, monsieur, I did bring some ice, but as 
monsieur can imagine to himself — a two hours' 
sun " 

" Nonsense, this sun wouldn't melt a pat of but- 
ter ; the ice is all right, and so is the wine." 

Then he continued in English : " Now, ladies, as 
I should begin if I were a politician, or an auc- 
tioneer ; now, ladies, the time for confession has 
arrived ; I can no longer conceal from you my bur- 
glarious scheme. In the next turn that we shall 

make to the right, the park of the P manoir 

will disclose itself. But, between us and that 
Park, there is a gate. That gate is locked. Now, 
gates, from the time of the Garden of Eden, I take 
it, have been an invention of — of — the other fellow, 



110 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

to keep people out. I know a way — but it's not 
the way you can follow. Henri and I will break 
down a few bars, we'll cross a few fields over yon- 
der, and will present ourselves, with all the virtues 
written on our faces, to you in the Park. Mean- 
while you must enter, as queens should — through 
the great gates. Behold, there is a cure yonder, a 
great friend of mine. You will step along the road- 
way ; you will ring a door-bell ; the cure will ap- 
pear ; you will ask him if it be true that the manoir 

of P is to rent, you have heard that he has the 

keys; he will present you the keys ; you will open 
the big gate and find me." 

" But — but, Mr. Eenard, I really don't see how 
that scheme will work." 

" Work ! It will work to a charm. You will 
see. Henri, just help the ladies, will you '? " 

Henri, with decisive gravity, was helping the 
ladies to alight ; in another instant he had re- 
gained his seat, and he and Eenard were flying 
down the roadway, out of sight. 

" Eeally— it's the coolest proceeding," Charm 
began. Then we looked through the bars of the 
park gate. The park was as green and as still as 
a convent garden ; a pink brick mansion, with 
closed window-blinds, was standing, surrounded 
by a terrace on one side, and by glittering i^ar- 
terres on the other. 

" Where did he say the old cure was ? " asked 
Charm, quite briskly, all at once. Everything had 
turned out precisely as Eenard had predicted. 
Poubtless he had also counted on the efiicacy of 
the old fable of the Peri at the Gate — one look 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. Ill 

had been sufficient to turn us into arrant conspir- 
ators ; to gain an entrance into that tranquil para- 
dise any ruse would serve. 

"Here's a church — he said nothing- about a 
church, did he ? " 

Across the avenue, above the branches of a row 
of tall trees, rose the ivied facade of a rude hamlet 
church ; a flight of steep weedy steps led up to its 
Norman doorway. The door was wide open; 
through the arched aperture came the sounds of 
footfalls, of a heavy, vigorous tread ; Charm ran 
lightly up a few of the lower steps, to peer into 
the open door. 

" It's the cure dusting the altar— shall I go in % " 
" No, we had best ring — this must be his house." 
The clatter of the cure's sabots was the response 
that answered to the bell we pulled, a bell attached 
to a diminutive brick house lying at the foot of 
the churchyard. The tinkling of the cracked-voiced 
bell had hardly ceased when the door opened. 

But the cure had already taken his first glance 
at us over the garden hedges. 




CHAPTER XII. 

A NOEMAN CUBE. 

" Mesdames ! " 

T li e priest's massive 
frame filled the narrow 
door ; the tones of his mel- 
low voice seemed also sud- 
denly to fill the air, drown- 
ing- all other sounds. The 
g- r a c e of his manner, a 
grace that invested the 
simple act of his uncov- 
ering and the holding of 
his calotte in hand, with an 
air of homage, made also our own errand the more 
difficult. 

I had already begun to murmur the nature of 
our errand: we were passing-, we had seen the 
manoir opposite, we had heard it was to rent, also 
that he, Monsieur le Cure, had the keys. 

Yes, the keys were here. Then the velvet in 
Monsieur le Cure's eyes turned to bronze, as they 
looked out at us from beneath the fine dome of 
brow. 

" I have the keys of the g-arden only, mesdames," 
he replied, with perfect but somewhat distant 
courtesy ; " the gardener, down the road yonder, 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 113 

lias the keys of the house. Do you really wish to 
rent the house ? " 

He had seen through our ruse with quick Nor- 
man penetration. He had not, from the first, been 
in the least deceived. 

It became the more difficult to smooth the situ- 
ation into shape. "We had thought perhaps to 
rent a villa, we were in one now at Villerville. If 
Monsieur le cure would let us look at the garden. 
Monsieur Eenard, whom perhaps he remem- 
bered 

" M. Eenard ! Oh ho ! Oh ho ! I see it all now," 
and a deep, mellow laugh smote the air. The keen- 
ness in the fine eyes melted into mirth, a mirth 
that laid the fine head back on the broad shoul- 
ders, that the laugh that shook the powerful frame 
might have the fuller play. 

"Ah, mes enfants, I see it all now — it is that 
scoundrel of a boy. I'll warrant he's there, over 
yonder, already. He was here yesterday, he was 
here the day before, and he is afraid, he is ashamed 
to ask again for the keys. But come, mes enfants, 
come, let us go in search of him." And the little 
door was closed with a slam. Down the broad 
roadway the next instant fluttered the old cure's 
soutane. We followed, but could scarcely keep 
pace with the brisk, vigorous strides. The sabots 
ploughed into the dust. The cane stamped along 
in company with the sabots, all three in a fury of 
impatience. The cure's step and his manner might 
have been those of a boy, burning with haste to 
discover a playmate in hiding. All the keenness 
and shrewdness on the fine, ruddy face had melted 



114 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

into sweetness ; an exuberance of mirth seemed to 
be tlie sap that fed his rich nature. It was easy to 
see he had passed the meridian of his existence in 
a realm of high spirits ; an irrepressible fountain 
within, the fountain of an unquenchable good- 
humor, bathed the whole man with the hues of 
health. Ripe red lips curved generously over 
superb teeth ; the cheeks were glowing, as were 
the eyes, the crimson below them deeiDening to 
splendor the velvet in the iris. The one severe 
line in the face, the thin, straight nose, ended in 
wide nostrils — in the quivering, mobile nostrils of 
the humorist. The swell of the gourmand's paunch 
beneath the soutane was proof that the cure was 
a true Norman — he had not passed a lifetime in 
these fertile gardens forgetful of the fact that the 
fine art of good living is the one indulgence the 
Church has left to its celibate sons. 

Meanwhile, our guide was peering with quick, 
excited gaze, through the thick foliage of the 
park; his fine black eyes were sweeping the par- 
terre and terrace. 

" Ah-h ! " his rich voice cried out, mockingly ; 
and he stopped, suddenly, to plant his cane in the 
ground with mock fierceness. 

" Tiens, Monsieur le Cure ! " cried Renard, from 
behind a tree, in a beautiful voice. It was a voice 
that matched with his well-acted surprise, when 
he appeared, confronting us, on the other side of 
the tree-trunk. 

The cure opened his arms. 

" All, mon enfant, viens, viens ! how good it is to 
see thee once asrain ! " 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 115 

They were in eacli other's arms. The cure was 
pressing- his lijDs to Eenard's cheek, in hearty 
French fashion. The priest, however, adminis- 
tered his reproof before he released him. Re- 
nard's broad shoulders received a series of pats, 
which turned to blows, dealt by the cure's hercu- 
lean hand. 

"Why didn't you let me know you were here, 
yesterday, Hein ? Answer me that. How goes 
the picture % Is it set up yet ? You see, mes- 
dames," turning- with a reddened cheek and gleam- 
ing- eyes, " it is thus I punish him — for he has no 
heart, no sensibilities — he only understands sev- 
erities ! And he defrauded me yesterday, he 
cheated me. I didn't even know of his being- here 
till he had gone. And the picture, where is it ? " 

It was on an easel, sunning itself beneath the 
park trees. The old priest clattered along- the 
gravelly walk, to take a look at it. 

" Tiens — it g-rows — the fig-ures beg-in to move— 
they are almost alive. There should be a trifle 
more shadow under the chin, what do you think ? " 

Henri raised his chin. Henri had undergone 
the process of transformation in our absence. He 
was now M. le Marquis de Pompadour — under the 
heart-shaped arch of the g-reat trees, he was stand- 
ing-, resplendent in laces, in g-listening- satins, 
leaning- on a rusty, dull- jewelled sword. Renard 
had mounted his palette ; he was dipping already 
into the mounds of color that dotted the palette- 
board, with his long brushes. On the canvas, in 
colors laid on by the touch of genius, this archway 
beneath which we were standing reared itself 



116 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

aloft ; the park trees were as tall and noble, trans- 
fixed in their image of immutable calm, on that 
strip of linen, as they towered now above us ; even 
the yellow cloud of the laburnum blossoms made 
the sunshine of the shaded grass, as it did here, 
where else no spot of sun might enter, so dense 
was the night of shade. The life of another day 
and time lived, however, beneath that shade ; 
Charm and the cure, as they drooped over the 
canvas, confronted a graceful, attenuated courtier, 
sickening in a languor of adoration, and a spright- 
ly coquette, whose porcelain beauty was as fin- 
ished as the feathery edges of her lacy sleeves. 

" Tres — bien — tres—bien," said the cure, nodding 
his head in critical commendation. " It will be a 
little masterpiece. And now," waving his hand 
toward us, " what do you propose to do with these 
ladies while you are painting ? " 

" Oh, they can wander about," Renard replied, 
abstractedly. He had already reseated himself 
and had begun to ply his brushes; he now saw 
only Henri and the hilt of the sword he was paint- 
ing in. 

" I knew it, I could have told you — a painter \ 
hasn't the manners of a peasant when he's paint- 
ing," cried the x^riest, lifting cane and hands high 
in air, in mock horror. " But all the better, all the 
better, I shall have you all to myself. Come, come 
with me. You can see the house later. I'll send 
for the gardener. It's too fine a day to be indoors. 
What a day, hein ? Le bon Diieu sends us such days 
now and then, to make us ache for paradise. This 
way, this way — we'll go through the little door — 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. IIY 

my little door ; it was made for me, you know, 
when the manoir was last inhabited. I and the 
children were too impatient — we suffered from 
that malady — all of us — we never could wait for 
the great gates yonder to be opened. So Mon- 
sieur de H built us this one." 

The little door opened directly on the road, and 
on the cure's house. There was a tangle of under- 
brush barring- the way ; but the cure pushed the 
briars apart with his strong hands, beating them 
down with his cane. 

When the door ox^ened, we loassed directly be- 
yond the roadway, to the steep steps leading to 
the church. The cure, before mounting' the steps, 
swept the road, upward and downward, with his 
keen glance. It was the instinctive action of the 
provincial, scenting the chance of novelty. Some 
distant object, in the meeting of two distant road- 
ways, arrested the darting eyes ; this time, at least, 
he was to be rewarded for his prudence in looking 
about him. The object slowly resolved itself into 
two crutches between which hung the limp figure 
of a one-legged man. 

" Bonjour, Monsieur le cure." The crutches came 
to a standstill ; the cripple's hand went up to doff 
a ragged worsted cap. 

" Good-day, good-day, my friend ; how goes it *? 
Not quite so stiff, hein — in such a bath of sunlight 
as this ■? Good-day, good-day." 

The crutches and their burden passed on, kick- 
ing a little cloud of dust about the lean figure. 

" Unpen casse, le bonhomme," he said, as he nodded 
to the cripple in a tone of reflection, as if the 



118 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

breakage tliat had befallen liis humble friend were 
a fresh incident in his experience. " Yes, he's a 
little broken, the poor old man ; but then," he ad- 
ded, quickly renewing" his tone of unquenchable 
high spirits — "one doesn't die of it. No, one 
doesn't die, fortunately. Why, we're all more or 
less cracked, or broken — up here." 

He shook another laugh out, as he preceded 
us up the stone steps. Then he turned to stop 
for a moment to point his cane toward the small 
house with whose chimneys we were now on a 
level. 

" There, mesdames, there is the proof that mere 
breaking doesn't signify — in this matter of life 
and death. Tenez, madame — " and with a charm- 
ing gesture he laid his richly-veined, strong old 
ha,nd on my arm — a hand that ended in beautiful 
fingers, each with its rim of moon-shaped dirt ; 
" tenez — figure to yourself, madame, that I myself 
have been here twenty years, and I came for two ! 
I bought out the bonJiomme who lived over yonder 
— I bought him and his furniture out. I said to 
myself, ' I'll buy it for eight hun.dred, and I'll sell 
it for four hundred, in a year.' " Here he laid his \ 
finger on his nose — lengthwise, the Norman in him 
supplanting the priest in his remembrance of a 
good bargain. " And now it is twenty years since 
then. Everything creaks and cracks over there ; all 
of us creak and crack. You should hear my chairs, 
elles se cassent les reins — they break their thighs 
continually. Ah ! there goes another, I cry out, as 
I sit down in one in winter and hear them groan. 
Poor old things, they are of the Empire, no won- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 119 

der tliey .e:roau. You sliould see us, when our 
bretliren come to take a cup of soup with me. 
Such a collection of antiquities as we are ! I 
catch them, my brothers, looking about, slyly 
peering- into the secrets of my little menag^e. 
'From his ancestors, doubtless, these old chairs 
and tables,' say these good freres, under their 
breath. And then I wink slyly at the chairs, 
and they never let on." 

Again the mellow laugh broke forth. He stopped 
again to puff and blow a little, from his toil up 
the steep steps. Then all at once, as the rough 
music of his clicking sabots and the playful taps 
of his cane ceased, the laugh on his mobile lips 
melted into seriousness. He lifted his cane, point- 
ing to the cemetery just above us, and to the grave- 
stones looking down over the hillsides between a 
network of roses. 

" We are old, madame — we are old, but, alas ! we 
never die ! It is difficult to people, that cemetery. 
There are only sixty of us in the parish, and we 
die — we die hard. For example, here is my old 
servant" — and. he covered a grave with a sweep 
of his cane — for we were leisurely sauntering 
through the little cemetery now. The grave to 
which he pointed was a garden ; heliotrope, myo- 
sotis, hare-bells and mignonette had made of the 
mound a bed of perfume — " see how quietly she 
lies — and yet what a restless soul the flowers 
cover ! She, too, died hard. It took her years to 
make up her mind ; finally le bon Dieu had to de- 
cide it for her, when she was eighty-four. She 
complained to the last — she was poor, she was in 



120 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

my way, she was blind. ' Eh hien, tu n'as pas hesoin 
de me f aire les beaux yeiix, toi'--l used to say to 
her. Ah, the good soul that she was ! " and the 
dark eye g-listened with moisture. A moment 
later the cure was blowing- vigorously the note of 
his grief, in trumpet-tones, through the organ that 
only a Frenchman can render an eflfective adjunct 
to moments of emotion. 

" You see, mes enfants, I am like that — I weep 
over my friends — when they are gone ! But see," 
he added quickly, recovering himself — " see, 
over yonder there is my predecessor's grave. He 
lies well, hein ? — comfortable, too — looking his old 
church in the face and the sun on his old bones 
all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will 
have company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a 
friend." The humorous smile was again curving 
his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were be- 
ginning to quiver. " When my friend and I lie 
there, we shall be a little crowded, perhaps. I 
said to him, when he proposed it, proposed to lie 
there with us, ' but we shall be crunching each 
other's bones ! ' ' No,' he replied, ' only falling into 
each other's arms ! ' So it was settled. He comes 
over from Havre, every now and then, to talk our 
tombstones over; we drink a glass of wine to- 
gether, and take a pipe and talk about our future 
— in eternity ! Ah, how gay we are ! It is so good 
to be friends with God ! " 

The voice deepened into seriousness. He went 
on in a quieter key : 

" But why am I always preaching and talking 
about death and eternity to two such ladies — two 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 121 

siicli children ? Ah — I know, I am really old — I 
only deceive myself into pretending- I'm young. 
You will do the same, both of you, some day. 
But come and see my good works. You know 
everyone has his little corner of conceit — I have 
mine. I like to do good, and then to boast of it. 
You shall see — you shall see." 

He was hurrying- us along the narrow paths 
now, past the little company of grave-stones, 
graves that were bearing their barbaric burdens 
of mortuary wreaths, of beaded crosses, and the 
motley assemblage, common to all French grave- 
yards, of hideous shrines encasing tin saints and 
madonnas in plaster. 

Above the sunken graves and the tin effigies of 
the martja^s behind the church, arose a fair and 
glittering marble tomb. It was strangely out of 
keeping with the meagre and paltry surroundings 
of the peasant grave-stones. As we approached 
the tomb it grew in imposingness. It was a circu- 
lar mortuary chapel, with carved pediment and 
iron-wrought gateway. 

" It's fine, liein, and beautiful, hein ? It is the 
Duke's ! " The cure, it was easy to see, considered 
the chapel in the light of a personal possession. 
He stood before it, bare-headed, with a new earn- 
estness on his mobile face. " It is the Duke's. 
Yes, the Duke's. I saved his soul, blessed be 
God ! and he — he rebuilds my cellars for me ! 
See " — and he pointed to the fine new base of 
stone, freshly cemented, on which the church 
rested — " see, I save his soul, and he preserves my 
buildings for me. It's a fair deal, isn't it ? How 



122 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

does it come about, that lie is converted ? Ah, 
you see, although I am a man without science, 
without knowledge, devoid of pretensions and 
learning, the good God sometimes makes use of 
such humble instruments to work His will. It 
came about in the usual way. The Duke came 
here carrying his religion lightly, as one may say, 
not thinking of his soul. I — I dine with him. 
We talk, we argue ; he does, that is — I only preach 
from my Bible. And behold ! one day he is con- 
verted. He is devout. And from gratitude, he 
repairs my crumbling old stones. And now see 
how solid, how strong is my church cellar ! " 

Again the fountain of his irrepressible merriment 
bubbled forth. For all the gayety, however, the 
severe line deepened as one grew to know the face 
better ; the line in profile running from the nose 
into the firm upi3er lip and into the still more 
resolute chin, matched the impress of authority 
marked on the noble brow. It was the face of one 
who might have infinite charity and indulgence 
for a sin, and yet would make no compromise 
with it. 

We had resumed our walk. It led us at last into 
the interior of the little church. The gloom and 
silence within, after the dazzling brilliancy of the 
noon-day sun and the noisy insect hum, invested 
the narrow nave and dim altar with an added 
charm. The old priest knelt for the briefest in- 
stant in reverence to the altar. When he turned 
there was surprise as well as a gentle reproach in 
the changeable eyes. 

" And you, mesdames ! How is this ? You are 



THBEE N0BMAND7 INNS. 123 

not Catliolics ? And I was so sure of it ! Quite 
sure of it, you were so sympathetic, so full of rev- 
erence. And you, my child " — turning- to Charm — 
"you speak our tong-ue so well, with the very 
accent of a g-ood Catholic. What ! you are Prot- 
estant % La ! La ! What do I hear 1 " He shook 
his cane over the backs of the straw-bottomed 
chairs; the sweet, mellow accents of his voice 
melted into loving- jDrotest — a protest in which the 
fervor was not quenched in spite of the merry key 
in which it was pitched. 

" Protestants ? Pouffe ! pouflfe ! What is that ? 
What is it to be a Protestant ? Heretics, heretics, 
that is what you are. So you are deux ajfreuses 
Mretiques ? Ah, la ! la ! Horrible ! horrible ! I 
must cure you of all that. I must cure you ! " 
He dropped his cane in the enthusiasm of his at- 
tack ; it fell with a clanging- sound on the stone 
pavement. He let it lie. He had assumed, un- 
consciously, the orator's, the joreacher's attitude. 
He crowded past the chairs, throwing- back his 
head as he advanced, striking- into argumentative 
gesture : 

" Tenez, listen, there is so little difference, after 
all. As I was saying to M. le comte cle Chermont 
the other day, no later than Thursday — he has 
married an English wife, you know — can't under- 
stand that either, how they can marry English 
wives. However, that's none of my business — we 
have nothing to do with marrying, we priests, ex- 
cept as a sacrament for others. I said to M. le 
comte, who, you know, shows tendencies toward 
anglicism — astonishing the influence of women— 1 



124 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

said : ' But, my dear M. le comte, why chang-e '? 
You will only exchang-e certainty for uncertainty, 
facts for doubts, truth for lies.' ' Yes, yes,' the 
comte replied, ' but there are so many new truths 
introduced now into our blessed religion — the in- 
fallibility of the pope — the — ' 'Ah, mon cJier comte 
— ne m'en pa'dez pas. If that is all that stands in 
your way — faites comme le bon Dieu ! Lui — il ferine 
les yeux et tend les bras. That is all we ask — we his 
servants — to have you close your eyes and open 
your arms.' " 

The good cure was out of breath ; he was panting*. 
After a moment, in a deeper tone, he went on : 

" You, too, my children, that is what I say to 
you — you need only to open your arms and to 
close your eyes. God is waiting" for you." 

For a long instant there was a great stillness — 
a silence during which the narrow spaces of the 
dim aisles were vibrating with the echoes of the 
rich voice. 

The rustle of a light skirt sweeping the stone 
flooring broke the moment's silence. Charm was 
crossing the aisles. She paused before a little 
wooden box, nailed to the wall. There came sud- 
denly on the ear the sound of coin rattling down 
into the empty box ; she had emptied into it the 
contents of her purse. 

" For your poor, monsieur le cure," she smiled 
U13, a little tremulously^, into the burning, glowing 
eyes. The priest bent over the fair head, laying 
his hand, as if in benediction, upon it. 

" My poor need it sadly, my child, and I thank 
you for them. God will bless you." 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 125 

It was a touching little scene, and I preferred, 
for one, to look out just then at Henri's figure ad- 
vancing toward us, up the stone steps. 

When the priest spoke again, it was in a husky 
tone, the gold in his voice dusted with moisture ; 
but the bantering spirits in him had reappeared. 

" AVhat a pity, that you must burn ! For you 
must — dreadful heretics that you are ! And this 
dear child, she seems to belong to us — I can never 
sit by, now, in Paradise, happy and secure, and 
see her burn ! " The laugh that followed was a 
mingled caress and a blessing. Henri came in for 
a part of the indulgence of the good cure's smile 
as he came uj) the steps. 

" Ah, Henri, you have come for these ladies ? " 

" Oui, monsieur le cure, luncheon is served." 

Our friend followed us to the topmost step, and 
to the very edge of the step. He stood there, 
talking down to us, as Ave continued to press him 
to return with us. 

" No, my children — no — no, I can't join you ; 
don't urge me; I can't, I must not. I must say 
niy prayers instead; besides the children come 
soon, for their catechism. No, don't beg me, I 
don't need to be importuned; I know what that 
dear Renard's wine is. Au revoir et a hientot — and 
remember," and here he lifted his arms — cane and 
all, high in the air — " all you need do is to close 
your eyes and to open your arms. God himself is 
doing the same." 

High up he stood, with uplifted hands, the 
smile irradiating a face that glowed with a saint's 
simplicity. Behind the black lines of his robe, 



126 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

the suulig-ht lay streaming- in noon glory ; it au- 
reolecl liim as never saint was aureoled by mortal 
brusli. A moment only he lingered there, to raise 
his cap in parting- salute. Then he turned, the 
trail of his gown sweeping the gravel paths, and 
presently the low church door swallowed him up. 
Through the door, as we crossed the road, there 
came out to us the click of sabots striking the 
rude flagging ; and a moment after, the murmur- 
ing echo of a deep, rich voice, saying the office of 
the hour. 



CHAPTEK Xni. 

HONFLEUK — NEW AND OLD. 

The stillness of the park trees, as we 
passed beneath them, was like the 
silence that comes after a blessing-. 
p The sun, flooding- the land- 
scape with a delng-e of 
- ' light, lost something" of its 
efiiilgence, by contrast with 
the fulness of the priest's 
rich nature. This fair world 
of beauty that lay the other 
side of the terrace wall, be- 
neath wdiich our luncheon 
was spread, was fair and 
' ' lovely still — but how unim- 
portant the landscape seemed compared to the 
varied scenery of the cure's soul-lit character! 
Of all kinds of nature, human nature is assuredly 
the best; it is at least the most perdurably in- 
teresting-. When Ave tire of it, when we weary of 
our fellow-man and turn the blase cheek on the 
fresh pillow of mother-earth, how quickly is the 
pillow deserted once the mental frame is rested 
or renewed ! The history of all human relations 
has the same ending— we all of us only fall out of 
love with man to fall as swiftly in again. 




128 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

The remainder of the afternoon passed with 
the rapidity common to all phases of enchant- 
ment. 

How could one eat seriously, with vulgar, g-lut- 
tonous hunger, of a feast siDread on the parapet of 
a terrace-wall! The white foam of napkins, the 
mosaic of the patties, the white breasts of chicken, 
the salads in their bath of dew — these spoke the 
language of a lost cause. For there was an open- 
air concert going on in full swing, and the per- 
formance was one that made the act of eating seem 
as gross as the munching of apples at an oratorio— 
the music being, indeed, of a highly refined order 
of perfection. One's ears needed to be highly at- 
tuned to hear the i3ricking of the locusts in the 
leaves ; even the breeze kept uncommonly still, 
that the brushing of the humming-birds' and bees' 
wings against the flower-petals might be the more 
distinctly heard. 

I never knew which one of the partj^ it was that 
decided we were to see the day out and the night 
in ; that we were to dine at the Cheval Blanc, on 
the Honfleur quays, instead of sedately breaking 
bread at the Mere Mouchard's. Even our steed 
needed very little urging* to see the advantages of 
such a scheme. Henri alone wore a grim air of 
disapproval. His aspect was an epitome of rigid 
protest. As he took his seat in the cart, he held 
the sword between his legs with the air of one 
burning with a pent-up anguish of protest. His 
eye gloomed on the day ; his head was held aloft, 
reared on a column of bristling vertebrae, and on 
his brow was written the sign of mutiny. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS, 129 

" Henri — you think we should go back ; you think 
g-oing- on to Houfieur a mistake ? " 

" Madame has said it " — Henri was a fatalist 
— in his speech, at least, he lived up to his creed. 
"Honfleur is far — Monsieur Kenard has not the 
good digestion — when he is tired — he suffers. II 
fiasse des nuits d'angoisse. II soiiffre des faiigtces de 
Vestomac. II se fatigue aujourdliid I " This, with 
an air of stern conviction, was accompanied by a 
glance at his master in which compassion was not 
the most obvious note to be read. He went on, 
remorselessly : 

"And, as madame knows, the work but begins 
for me when we are at home. There are the cos- 
tumes to be dusted and put away, the paint- 
brushes to clean, the dishes and lunch-basket to be 
attended to. As madame sa3's, monsieur is some- 
times lacking in consideration. Mcds, que voidez- 
vous ? le genie, c'estfcdt comme qci." 

Madame had not exx3ressed the feeblest echo of 
a criticism on the composition of the genius in 
front ; but the short dialogue had helped, percep- 
tibly, to lift the weight of Henri's gloom ; he was 
beginning to accept the fate of the day with a phi- 
losopher's phlegm. Already he had readjusted a 
little difficulty between his feet and the lunch- 
basket, making his religious care of the latter com- 
patible with the open sin of improved personal 
comfort. 

Meanwhile the two on the front seat were a 
thousand miles away. Neither we, nor the day, 
nor the beauty of the drive had power to woo their 
glances from coming back to the focal point of in- 



130 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

terest they had found in each other. They were 
beg-inning- to talk, not about each other but of 
themselves — the danger-signal of all tete-a-tete 
adventures. 

"When two young" people have g-ot into the per- 
sonal-pronoun stage of human intercourse, there 
is but one thing left for the unfortunate third in 
the party to do. Yes, now that I think of it, there 
are two roles to be played. The usual conception 
of the part is to turn marplot — to spoil and ruin 
the others' dialogue — to put an end to it, if possible, 
by legitimate or illegitimate means ; a very suc- 
cessful way, I have observed, of prolonging, as a 
rule, such a duet indefinitely. The more enlight- 
ened actor in any such little human comedy, if 
he be gifted with insight, will collapse into the 
wings, and let the two young idiots have the whole 
stage to themselves. As like as not they'll weary 
of the play, and of themselves, if left alone. No 
harm will come of all the sentimental strutting 
and the romantic attitudinizing, other than view- 
ing the scene, later, in loerspective, as a rather 
amusing bit of emotional farce. 

Besides being in the very height of the siiring 
fashion, in the matter of the sentiments, these two 
were also busily treading, at just this particular 
moment, the most alluring of all the paths lead- 
ing to what may be termed the outlying territo- 
rial domain of the emotions ; they were wandering 
through the land called Mutual Discovery. Now, 
this, I have always held, is among the most de- 
lectable of all the roads of life ; for it may lead 
one — anywhere or nowhere. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 131 

Therefore it was from a purely generous imjoulse 
that I continued to look at the view. The sur- 
roundings were, in truth, in consiDiracy with the 
sentimentalists on the front seat; the extreme 
beauty of the road would have made any but senti- 
mental egotists oblivious to all else. The road 
was a continuation of the one we had followed in 
the morning's drive. Again, all the greenness of 
field and grass was braided, inextricably, into the 
blue of river and ocean. Above, as before, in that 
earlier morning drive, towered the giant aisles 
of the beaches and elms. Through those aisles 
the radiant Normandy landscape flowed again, 
as music from rich organ -x^iped throats flows 
through cathedral arches. Out yonder, on the 
Seine's wide mouth, the boats were balancing 
themselves, as if they also were half divided be- 
tween a doubt and a longing ; a freshening spurt 
of breeze filled their flapping sails, and away they 
sioed, skipping through the waters with all the 
gayety which comes with the vigor of fresh reso- 
lutions. The light that fell over the land and 
waters was dazzling, and yet of an astonishing 
limpidity ; only a sun about to drop and end his 
reign coidd be at once so brilliant and so tender 
— the diffused light had the sparkle of gold made 
soft by usage. Wherever the eye roved, it was fed 
as on a banquet of light and color. Nothing could 
be more exquisite, for depth of green swimming 
in a bath of shadow, than the meadows curled 
beneath the cliffs ; nothing more tempting, to the 
painter's brush, than the arabesque of blossoms 
netted across the sk}^; and would you have the 



132 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

living" eye of nature, bristling- with animation, 
alive with winged sails, and steeped in the very 
soul of yellow sunshine, look out over the great 
sheet of the waters, and steep the senses in such a 
breadth of aqueous sj)lendor as one sees only in 
one or two of the rare shows of earth. 

Then, all at once, all too soon, the great picture 
seemed to shrink ; the quivering pulsation of light 
and color gave way to staid, commonplace gar- 
dens. Instead of hawthorn hedges there was the 
stench of river smells — we were driving over cob- 
ble-paved streets and beneath rows of crooked, 
crumbling houses. A group of noisy street ur- 
chins greeted us in derision. And then we had 
no doubt whatsoever that we were alreadj^ in 
Honfleur town. 

"Honfleur is an evil-smelling place," I remarked. 

" Oh, well, after all, the smells of antiquity are 
a part of the show ; we should refuse to believe 
in ancientness, all of us, I fancy, if mustiuess 
wasn't served along- with it." 

" How can any town have such a stench with all 
this river and water and verdure to sweeten it ? " I 
asked, with a woman's belief in the morality of \ 
environment — a belief much cherished by wives 
and mothers, I have noticed. 

" Wait till you see the inhabitants — they'll en- 
lighten you — the hags and the nautical gentle- 
men along the basins and quays. They've dis- 
covered the secret that if cleanliness is next to 
godliness, dirt and the devil are likewise near 
neighbors. Awful set — those Honfleur sailors. 
The Havre and Seine people call them Chinamen, 





BELFIir OF ST. CATHERINE — HONFLEUR. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 133 

they are so unlike the rest of France and French- 
men." 

" Why are they so unlike ? " asked Charm. 

" They're so low down, so hideously wicked ; 
they're like the old houses, a rotten, worm-eaten 
set — you'll see." 

Charm stopped him then, with a g-esture. She 
stopped the horse also ; she broug-ht the whole es- 
tablishment to a standstill ; and then she nod- 
ded her head briskly forward. We were in the 
midst of the Honfleur streets — streets that were 
running away from a wide open space, in all 
]30ssible directions. In the centre of the square 
rose a curious, an altogether astonishing" struct- 
ure. It was a tower, a belfry doubtless, a house, 
a shop, and a warehouse, all in one ; such a pictu- 
resque medley, in fact, as only modern irreverence, 
in its lawless disregard of original purpose and 
design, can joroduce. The low-timbered sub-base 
of the structure was pierced by a lovely doorway 
with sculptured lintel, and also with two imi^erti- 
nent modern windows, flaunting muslin curtains, 
and coquettishly attired with rows of flowering 
carnations. Beneath these windows was a shop. 
Above the whole rose, in beautiful symmetrical 
lines, a wooden belfry, tapering from a square 
tower into a delicately modelled spire. To com- 
plete and accentuate the note of the pictures 
the superstructure was held in its place 
modern beams, propping the tower with 
disregard of decorative embellishment. A* e 
it at once as the quaint and famous Belfry o'» 
Catherine. 
I 



134 THREE N OEM ANDY INNS. 

As we were about to turn away to descend the 
higli street, a Norman maiden, with close-capped 
face, leaned over the carnations to look down upon 
us. 

" That's the daughter of the bell-ringer, doubt- 
less. Economical idea that," Eenard remarked, 
taking his cap off to the smiling eyes. 

" Economical % " 

" Yes, can't you see ? Bell-ringer sends pretty 
daughter to window, just before vespers or ser- 
vice, and she rings in the worshippers ; no need 
to make the bells ring." 

" What nonsense ! "■ — but we laughed as flatter- 
ingly as if his si^eech had been a g'enuine coin of 
wit. 

A turn down the street, and the famous Hon- 
fleur of the wharves and floating docks lay before 
us. About us, all at once, was the roar and hub- 
bub of an extraordinary bustle and excitement ; 
all the life of the town, aioparently, was centred 
upon the quays. The latter were swarming with 
a tattered, ragged, bare- footed, bare-legged assem- 
blage of old women, of gamins, and sailors. The 
collection, as a collection, was one gifted with the\ 
talent of making itself heard. Everyone appeared 
to be shrieking, or yelling, or crying aloud, if only 
to keej) the others in voice. Sailors lying on the 
flat parapets shouted hoarsely to their fellows in 
the rigging of the ships that lay tossing in the 
docks ; fishermen's families tossed their farewells 
above the hubbub to the captain-fathers launching 
their fishing-smacks ; one shrieking infant was be- 
ing passed, gayly, from the poop of a distant deck, 



THREE NOllMANDY INNS. 135 

across tlie closely lying- shipping", to tlie quay's 
steps, to be linshecl by tlie generous opening of a 
peasant motlier's bodice. One could hear the 
straining of cordage, the creak of masts, the flap of 
the sails, all the noises peculiar to shipping riding 
at anchor. The shriek of steam-Avhistles broke out, 
ever and anon, above all the din and uproar. Along 
the quay steios and the wharves there were con- 
stantly forming and re-forming groups of wretched, 
tattered human beings ; of men with bloated faces 
and a dull, sodden look, strikingly in contrast with 
the vivacity common among- French people. Even 
the children and women had a de^Draved, shameless 
appearance, as if vice had robbed them of the last 
vestige of hope and ambition. Along the parapet 
a half-dozen drunkards sprawled, asleep or dozing-. 
At the legs of one a child was pulling, crying : 
" Viens — mere f hattra, elle estsoule aussi." 
The sailors out yonder, busy in the rigging, and 
the men on the decks of the smart brigs and 
steamships, whistled and shouted and sang, as in- 
different to this picture of human misery and de- 
g-radation as if they had no kinship with it. 

As a frame to the picture, Honfleur town lay be- 
neath the crown of its hills ; on the tops and sides 
of the latter, villa after villa shot through the 
trees, a curve of roof-line, with rows of daintily 
draped windows. At the right, close to the wharves, 
below the wooded heights, there loomed out a 
quaint and curious gateway flanked by two watch- 
towers, grim reminders of the Honfleur of the 
great days. And above and about the whole, en- 
comi3assing villa-crowded hills and closely packed 



136 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

streets, and the forest of masts trembling- against 
the sky, there lay a heaven of spring- and summer. 

Eenard had driven briskly up to a low, rambling 
facade parallel with the quays. It was the " Che- 
val Blanc." A crowd assembled on the instant, as 
if appearing according to command. 

" Allans — n'encombrez 2^cis ces dames ! " cried a 
very smart individual, in striking contrast to the 
down-at-heel air of the hotel — a personage who 
took high-handed possession of us and our traps. 
" Will ces dames desire a salon — there is un vrai 
petit bijou empty just now," murmured a voice in a 
purring soprano, through the iron opening of the 
cashier's desk. 

Another voice was crying out to us, as we wound 
our way upward in pursuit of the jewel of a salon. 
"And the widow. La Veuve, shall she be dry or 
sweet ? " 

When we entered the low dining-room, a little 
later, we found that the artist as well as the epi- 
cure has been in active conspiracy to make the 
dinner complete ; the choice of the table pro- 
claimed one accomplished in massing effects. The 
table was parallel with the low window, and\ 
through the latter was such a picture as one trav- ' 
els hundreds of miles to look upon, only to miss 
seeing it, as a rule. There was a great breadth of 
sky through the windows ; against the sky rose 
the mastheads ; and some red and brown sails cur- 
tained the space, bringing into relief the gray line 
of the sad-faced old houses fringing the shore- 
line. 

" Couldn't have chosen better if we'd tried, could 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 137 

we ? It's just the right hour, and just the right 
kind of light. Those basins are unendurable — 
sinks of iniquitous ugliness, unless the tide's in 
and there's a sunset going on. Just look — now ! 
Who cares whether Honfleurhas been done to death 
by the tourist horde or not ? and been painted un- 
til one's art-stomach turns ? I presume I ought to 
beg your pardon, but I can't stand the abomina- 
tion of modern repetitions ; the hand-organ busi- 
ness in art, I call it. But at this hour, at this 
time of the year, before this rattle-trap of an inn 
is as packed with Baedeker attachments as a Si- 
berian prison is with Nihilists — to run out here 
and look at these quays and basins, and old Hon- 
fleur lying here, beneath her green cliffs— well, 
short of Cairo, I don't know any better bit of color. 
Look out there, now ! See those sails, dripping 
with color, and that fellow up there, letting the 
sail down — there, splash it goes into the water, I 
knew it would; now tell me where will you get 
better blues or yellows or browns, with just the 
right purples in the shore line, than you'll get 
here "? " 

Eenard was fairly started ; he had the bit of the 
born monologist between his teeth ; he stopped 
barely long enough to hear even an echoing as- 
sent. We were quite content ; we continued to 
sip our champagne and to feast our eyes. Mean- 
while Renard talked on. 

"Guide-books — what's the use of guide-books? 
What do they teach you, anyway ? Open any one 
of the cursed clap -trap things. Yes, yes, I know 
I oughtn't to use vigorous language." 



138 TERES NORMANDY INNS. 

"Do," bleated Charm, smiling- sweetly up at 
him. " Do, it makes you seem mauly." 

Even Renard had to take time to laugh. 

" Thank you ! I'm not above making use of any 
aids to create that illusion. Well, as I was saying, 
what guide-book ever really helped anyone to 
see ? — that's what one travels for, I take it. Here, 
for instance, Murray or Baedeker would give you 
this sort of thing: 'Honfleur, an ancient tov/n, 
with pier, beaches, three floating docks, and a 
good deal of trade in timber, cod, etc. ; exports 
large quantities of eggs to England.' Good heav- 
ens ! it makes one boil ! Do sane, reasonable mor- 
tals travel three thousand miles to read ancient 
history done up in modern binding, served up a 
la Murray, a la Baedeker % " 

" Oh, you do them injustice, I think — the guides 
do go in for a little more of the i^icturesque than 
that " 

" And how — how do they do it "? This is the 
sort of thing they'll give you : ' Church of St. 
Catherine is large and remarkable, entirely of tim- 
ber and plaster, the largest of its kind in France.' 
Ah ! ha ! that's the picturesque with a vengeance. 
No, no, my friends, throw the guide-books into the 
river, pitch them overboard through the port- 
holes, along with the flowers, and letters to he read 
three days out, and the nasty novels loeople send 
you to make the crossing pleasant. And when 
you travel, really travel, mind, never make a plan 
—just go — go anywhere, whenever the impulse 
seizes you — and you may hope to get there, in the 
right way, possibly." 



"^^r- 



.fj- 




THREE NORMANDY INNS. 139 

Here Renarcl stopped to finish his g-hiss, drain- 
ing' the last drop of the yellow liquid. Then he 
went on : " To travel ! To start when an impulse 
seizes one ! To g-o — anywhere ! Why not ! It was 
for this, after all, that all of us have come our three 
thousand miles." Perha^os it was the restless toss- 
ing- of the shipping- out yonder in the basins that 
awoke an answering- impatience within, in re- 
sponse to Eenard's outburst. Where did they g-o, 
those ships, and, up beyond this mouth of the 
Seine, how looked the shores, and what life lived 
itself out beneath the rustling- poplars ? Is it the 
mission of all flowing- water to create an unrest in 
men's minds ? 

Meanwhile, though the talk was not done, the 
dinner was long since eaten. We rose to take a 
glimpse of Honfleur and its famous old basin. 
The quays and the floating docks, in front of 
which we had been dining, are a part of the nine- 
teenth century ; the great ships ride in to them 
from the sea. But here, in this inner quadrangular 
dock, beside which we were soon standing, traced 
by Duquesne when Louis the Great discovered the 
maritime importance of Honfleur, we found still 
reminders of the old life. Here were the same 
old houses that, in the seventeenth century, up- 
right and brave in their brand new carvings, saw 
the high-decked, picturesquely painted Sx^anish 
and Portuguese ships ride in to dip their flag to 
tlie French fleur-de-lis. There are but few of the 
old streets left to crowd about the shipping life 
that still floats here, as in those bygone days of 
Honfleur pride ; — when Havre was but a yellow 



140 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

strip of sand ; when the Honfleur merchants would 
have laughed to scorn any prophet's cry of warn- 
ing" that one day that sand-bar opposite, despised, 
disregarded, boasting only a chapel and a tavern, 
would grow and grow, and would steal year by year 
and inch by inch bustling Honfleur's traffic, till 
none was left. 

In the old adventurous days, along with the 
Spanish ships came others, French trading and 
fishing vessels, with the salty crustations of long 
voyages on' their hulls and masts. The wharves 
were alive then with fish-wives, whom Evelyn will 
tell you wore "useful habits made of goats' skin." 
The cax^tains' daughters were in quaint Normandy 
costumes ; and the high-peaked coifs and the stiff 
woollen skirts, as well as the goat-skin coats, 
trembled as the women darted hither and thither 
among the sailors — whose high cries filled the air 
as they picked out mother and wife. Then were 
bronzed beards buried in the deeply-wrinkled old 
meres' faces, and young, strong arms clasped 
about maidens' waists. The whole town rang with 
gayety and with the mad joy of reunion. On the 
morrow, coiling its way up the steep hillsides, 
wound the long lines of the grateful company, one 
composed chiefly of the crews of these vessels 
happily come to port. The procession would mount 
up to the little church of Notre Dame de Grace 
]3erched on the hill overlooking the harbor. Some 
even — so deep was their joy at deliverance from 
shi]3wreck and so fervent their piety — crawled up, 
bare-footed, with bared head, wives and children 
following, weeping for joy, as the rude ex-vofos 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 141 

were laid by the sailors' trembling bands at tlie 
feet of the Virg-in Lady. 

As reminders of this old life, what is left ? With- 
in the stone quadrangle we found clustered a mot- 
ley fleet of wrecks and fishing- vessels ; the nets, 
flung out to dry in the night air, hung like shrouds 
from the mastheads ; here and there a figure be- 
strode a deck, a rough shape, that seemed en- 
dowed with a double gift of life, so still and 
noiseless was the town. Around the silent dock, 
grouped in mysterious medley and confusion, 
were tottering roof lines, projecting eaves, narrow 
windows, all crazily tortured and out of shape. 
Here and there, beneath the broad beams of sup- 
port, a little interior, dimly lighted, showed a 
knot of sailors gathered, drinking or lounging. 
Up high beneath a chimney perilously overlook- 
ing a rude fagade, a quaint shape emerged, one 
as decrepit and forlorn of life and hope as the 
decaying houses it overlooked. Silence, pov- 
erty, wretchedness, the dregs of life, to this has 
Honfleur fallen. These old houses, in their slow 
decay, hiding in their dark bosom the gaunt se- 
crets of this poverty and human misery, seemed to 
be dancing a dance of drunken indifi^erence. Some 
day the dance will end in a fall, and then the 
Honfleur of the past will not even boast of a 
ghost, as reminder of its days of splendor. 

An artist quicker than anyone else, I think, can 
be trusted to take one out of history and into the 
picturesque. Renard refused to see anything but 
beauty in the decay about us ; for him the houses 
were at just the right drooping angle ; the roof 



142 THRE'E NORMANDY INNS. 

lines were delightful in their irregularity; and 
tlie fluttering tremor of the nets, along the rig- 
ging, was the very i^oetry of motion. 

" We'll finish the evening on the pier," he ex- 
claimed, suddenly ; " the moon will soon be up 
— we can sit it out there and see it begin to 
color things." 

The pier was more popular than the quaint 
old dock. It was crowded with promenaders, 
who, doubtless, were taking a bite of the sea-air. 
Through the dusk the tripping figures of gentle- 
men in white flannels and jaunty caps brushed 
the provincial Honfleur swells. Some gentle 
English voices told us some of the villa residents 
had come down to the pier, moved by the beauty 
of the night. Groups of sailors, with tanned 
faces and punctured ears hooped with gold rings, 
sat on the broad stone parapets, talking unintelli- 
gible Breton patois. The pier ran far out, almost 
to the Havre clifi's, it seemed to us, as we walked 
along in the dusk of the young night. The sky 
was slowly losing its soft flame. A tender, mel- 
low half light was stealing over the waters, mak- 
ing the town a rich mass of shade. Over the top 
of the low hills the moon shot out, a large, globular 
mass of beaten gold. At first it was only a x^art 
and portion of the universal lighting, of the still 
flushed sky, of the red and crimson harbor lights, 
of the dim twinkling of lamias and candles in the 
rude interiors along the shore. But slowly, tri- 
umphantly, the great lamp swung up ; it rose 
higher and higher into the soft summer sky, and as 
it mounted, sky and earth began to pale and fade. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 143 

Soon there was only a silver world to look out 
upon — a wealth of quivering silver over the breast 
of the waters, and a deeper, richer gray on cliffs 
and roof tops. Out of this silver world came the 
sound of waters, lapping" in soft cadence against 
the pier ; the rise and fall of sails, stirring in the 
night wind; the tread of human footsteps moving 
in slow, measured beat, in unison with the rhythm 
of the waters. Just when the stars were scatter- 
ing their gold on the bosom of the sea-river, a 
voice rang out, a rich, full baritone. Quite near, 
two sailors were seated, with their arms about 
each other's shoulders. They also were looking 
at the moonlight, and one of them was singing to 
it: 

" Te souviens-tu, 3Iarie, 

De notre evfance aux champs ? 

Te souviens-tu? 

Le temjos queje regrette 
C'est le temps qui n'est plus." 



DIVES: 

AN INN ON A HIGH-ROAD. 






CHAPTEE XIV. 

A COAST DRIVE. 

- J On our return to Villerville we 

'lilP *"%"' found that the charm of the 
\ f'f ^^ place, for us, was a broken one. 

^ filfc.^^ We had seen the world ; the ef- 

fect of that experience was to 
Sf a^ ' produce the common result — 
'.^■^^^ there was a fine deposit of dis- 
*"'V'~/ content in the cup of our pleas- 

> J ure. 

Madame Fouchet had made use 
of our absence to settle our destiny; she had 
rented her villa. This was one of the bitter dregs. 
Another was to find that the life of the village 
seemed to pass us by ; it gave us to understand, 
with unflattering frankness, that for strangers 
who made no bargains for the season, it had little 
or no civility to squander. For the Villerville 
beach, the inn, and the villas were crowded. 
Mere Mouchard was tossing omelettes from morn- 
ing till night ; even Augustine was far too hurried 
to pay her usual visit to the creamery. A detach- 
ment of Parisian costumes and be-ribboned nur- 
sery maids was crowding out the fish-wives and 
old hags from their stations on the low door-stejas 
and the grasses on the cliffs. 



148 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

Even Foucliet was no longer a familiar figure in 
tlie foreground of liis garden ; his roses were bloom- 
ing now for tlie present owners of his villa. He 
and madame had betaken themselves to a box of a 
hut on the very outskirts of the village — a miser- 
able little hovel with two rooms and a bit of past- 
ure land being the substitute, as a dwelling, for the 
gay villa and its garden along the sea-cliffs. Pity, 
however, would have been entirely wasted on the 
Fouchet household and their change of habitation. 
Tucked in, cramped, and uncomfortable beneath 
the low eaves of their cabin ceilings, they could now 
wear away the summer in blissful contentment : 
Were they not living on nothing — on less than 
nothing, in this dark pocket of a cJmumiere, while 
their fine house yonder was paying for itself hand- 
somely, week after week ? The heart beats high, in 
a Norman breast, when the pocket bulges ; gold — 
that is better than bread to feel in one's hand. 

The whole village wore this triumphant expres- 
sion — now that the season was beginning. Paris 
had come down to them, at last, to be shorn of its 
strength ; angling for pennies in a Parisian pocket 
was better, far, than casting nets into the sea. 
There was also more contentment in such fishing 
— for true Norman wit. 

Only once did the village change its look of 
triumph to one of polite regret ; for though it was 
Norman, it was also French. It remembered, on 
the morning of our departure, that the civility of 
the farewell costs nothing, and like bread prodi- 
gally scattered on the waters, may perchance bring 
back a tenfold recompense. ^ 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 149 

Even the morning arose witli a flattering- pallor. 
It was a gray clay. The low houses were like so 
many rows of pale faces ; the caps of the fish- 
wives, as they nodded a farewell, seemed to put 
the village in half-mourning. 

" You will have a i3erfect day for your drive — 
there's nothing better than these grays in the 
French landscape," Henard was saying, at our car- 
riage wheels ; " they bring out every tone. And 
the sea is wonderful. Pity you're going. Grand 
day for the mussel-bed. However, I shall see you, 
I shall see you. Remember me to Monsieur Paul : 
tell him to save me a bottle of his famous old 
wine. Good-by, good-by." 

There was a shower of rose-leaves flung out upon 
us ; a great sweep of the now familiar beret ; a 
sonorous " Hui ! " from our driver, with an accom- 
paniment of vigorous whip-snapiDing, and we were 
off. 

The grayness of the closely-packed houses was 
soon exchanged for the farms lying beneath the 
elms. With the widening of the distance between 
our carriage-wheels and Villerville, there was soon 
a great expanse of mouse-colored sky and the 
breath of a silver sea. The fields and foliage were 
softly brilliant ; when the light wind stirred the 
grain, the poppies and bluets were as vivid as 
flowers seen in dreams. 

It is easy to understand, I think, why French 
painters are so enamoured of their gray skies— such 
a background makes even the commonplace wear 
an air of importance. All the tones of the land- 
scape were astonishingly serious ; the features of 



150 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

the coast and the inland country were as signifi- 
cant as if tliey were meditating- an outbreak into 
speech. It was the kind of day that bred reflec- 
tion ; one could put anj^thing- one liked into the 
picture with a certainty of its fitting the frame. 
We were putting a certain amount of regret into 
it ; for though Villerville has seen us depart with 
civilized indifi^erence or the stolidity of the bar- 
barian — for they are one, we found our own attain- 
ments in the science of unf eelingness deficient ; to 
look down upon the village from the next hill top 
was like facing a lost joy. 

Once on the highroad, however, the life along 
the shore gave us little time for the futility of re- 
gret. Regret, at best, is a barren thing : • like the 
mule, it is incapable of i^erpetuating its own mis- 
takes ; it appears to apologize, indeed, for its stu- 
pidity by making its exit as speedily as possible. 
With the next turn of the road we were in fitting 
condition to greet the wildest form of adventure. 

Pedlars' carts and the lumbering Normandy farm 
wagons were, at first, our chief companions along 
the roadway. Here and there a head would peep 
forth from a villa window, or a hand be stretched 
out into the air to see if any rain was falling from 
the moist sky. The farms were quieter than usual ; 
there was an air of patient waiting in the court- 
yards, among the blouses and standing cattle, as 
though both man and beast were there in attend- 
ance on tliG day and the weather, till the latter 
could come to the point of a final decision in re- 
gard to the rain. 

Finally, as we were nearing Trouville, the big 



THREE NORMANDT INNS. 151 

drops fell. Tlie grain-fields were soon bent double 
beneath the spasmodic shower. The poppies were 
drenched, so were the cobble-paved courtyards-, 
only the geese and the regiment of the ducks came 
abroad to revel in the downpour. The villas were 
hermetically sealed now— their summer finery was 
not made for a wetting. The landscape had no 
such reserves ; it gave itself up to the light summer 
shower as if it knew that its raiment, like Eachel's, 
when dampened the better to take her plastic out- 
lines, only gained in tone and loveliness the closer 
it fitted the recumbent figure of mother earth. 

Our coachman could never have been mistaken 
for any other than a good Norman. He was en- 
dowed with the gift of oratory peculiar to the 
country ; and his profanity was enriched with all 
the flavor of the provincial's elation in the com- 
mitting of sin. From the earliest moment of our 
starting, the stream of his talk had been unending. 
His vocabulary was such as to have excited the 
envy and despair of a French realist, impassioned 
in the pursuit of " the word." 

" jlui I—hougre ! "—This was the most common 
of his salutations to his horse. It was the Nor- 
man coachman's familiar apostrophe, impossible 
of imitation ; it was also one no Norman horse who 
respects himself moves an inch without first hear- 
ing. Chat Noir was a horse of purest Norman an- 
cestry ; his Percheron blood was as untainted as 
his intelligence was unclouded by having no 
mixtures of tongues with which to deal. His 
owner's " Hui! " lifted him with arrowy light- 
ness to the top of a hill. The deeper " Boiigre " 



152 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

steadied his nerve for a good mile of unbroken 
trotting-. Any toil is pleasant in the gray of a 
cool morning", with a friend holding- the reins 
who is a g-ifted monologist ; even imprecations, 
rightly administered, are only lively punctuations 
to really talented speech. 

" Come, my beauty, take in thy breath — courage ! 
The hill is before thee ! Curse thy withered legs, 
and is it thus thou stumbleth % On — up with thee 
and that mountain of flesh thou carriest about with 
thee." And the mountain of flesh would be lifted — 
it was carried as lightly by the finely-feathered 
legs and the broad haunches as if the firm avoir- 
dupois were so much gossamer tissue. On and on 
the neat, strong hoofs rang their metallic click, 
clack along the smooth macadam. They had car- 
ried us past the farm-houses, the cliffs, the mead- 
ows, and the Norman-roofed manoirs buried in their 
apple-orchards. These same hoofs were now care- 
fully, dexterously picking- their way down the 
steep hill that leads directly into the city of the 
Trouville villas. 

Presently, the hoofs came to a sudden halt, from 
sheer amazement. What was this order, this com- 
mand the quick Percheron hearing had overheard ? 
Not to go any farther into this summer city — not 
to go down to its sand-beach — not to wander 
through the labyrinth of its gay little streets ?— 
Verily, it is the fate of a good horse, how often ! 
to carry fools, and the destiny of intelligence to 
serve those deficient in mind and sense. 

The criticism on our choice of direction was an- 
nounced by the hoofs turning resignedly, with the 




ON THE COAST. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 153 

patient assent of tlie fatigue tliat is bred of dis- 
g-ust, into one of tlie upper Trouville by-streets. 
Our coachman contented liimself witli a commiser- 
ating shrug and a prolonged iiow of explanation. 
Perhaps ces dames, being strangers, did not know 
that Trouville was now beginning its real season 
— its season of baths ? The Casino, in truth, was 
onl}'- opened a week since ; but we could hear the 
band even now playing above the noise of the 
waves. And behold, the villas were filling ; each 
day some grande dame came down to take posses- 
sion of her house by the sea. 

How could we hope to make a Frenchman com- 
prehend an instinctive impulse to turn our backs 
on the Trouville world ? AYhat, pray, had we just 
now to do with fashion — with the purring accents 
of boudoirs, with all the life we had run away 
from ? Surply the romance — the charm of our 
present experiences would be put to flight once 
we exchanged salutations with the beau monde — 
with that world that is so sceptical of any jDleasure 
save that which blooms in its own hot-houses, and 
so disdainful of all forms of life save those that are 
modelled on fashion's types. We had fled from 
cities to escape all this ; were we, forsooth, to be 
pushed into the motley crowd of commonplace 
pleasure-seekers because of the scorn of a human 
creature, and the mute criticism of a beast that 
was hired to do the bidding of his betters ? The 
world of fashion was one to be looked out upon as 
a part of the general mlse-en-scene — as a bit of the 
universal decoration of this vast amphitheatre of 
the Normandy beaches. 



154 THREE NORMANDT INNS. 

Chat noir had little reverence for pliilosopliic 
reflections ; lie turned a sharp corner just then ; 
he stopped short, directly in front of the broad 
windows of a confectioner's shop. This time he 
did not appeal in vain to the strangers with a 
barbarian's contempt for the great world. The 
brisk drive and the salt in the air were stimulants 
to appetite to be respected; it is not every day 
the palate has so fine an edge. 

" Du the, mesdames — a VAnglaise ? " a neatly- 
corsetted shape, in black, to set off a pair of daz- 
zling pink cheeks, shone out behind rows of apri- 
cot tarts. There was also a cap that conveyed to 
one, through the medium of pink bows, the ca- 
joacities of coquetry that lay in the depths of the 
rich brown eyes beneath them. The attractive 
shape emerged at once from behind the counter, 
to set chairs about the little table. We were bid- 
den to be seated with an air of smiling grace, one 
that invested the act with the emphasis of genu- 
ine hospitality. Soon a great clatter arose in the 
rear of the shop ; opinions and counter-opinions 
were being volubly exchanged in shrill French, 
as to whether the water should or should not\ 
come to a boil ; also as to whether the leaves of 
oolong or of green should be chosen for our bev- 
erage. The cap fluttered in several times to ask, 
with exquisite politeness — a politeness which 
could not wholly veil the hidden anxiety — our 
own tastes and preferences. When the cap re- 
turned to the battling forces behind the screen, 
armed with the authority of our confessed preju- 
dices, a new war of tongues arose. The fate of 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 155 

nations, trembling on the tnrn of a battle, might 
have been settled before that pot of water, so 
watched and guarded over, was brought to a boil. 
When, finally, the little tea service was brought 
in, every detail was perfect in taste and appoint- 
ment, except the tea ; the faction that had held 
out valiantly, that the water should not boil, 
had prevailed, as the half-soaked tea-leaves float- 
ing on top of our full cups triumphantly pro- 
claimed. 

We sipped the beverage, agreeing Balzac had 
well named it ce boisson fade et melancoUque ; the 
novelist's disdain being the better understood as 
we reflected he had doubtless only tasted it as 
concocted by French ineptitude. AVe were very 
merry over the liver-colored liquid, as we sipped 
it and quoted Balzac. But not for a moment had 
our merriment deceived the brown eyes and the 
fluttering cap -ribbons. A little drama of remorse 
was soon played for o^ir benefit. It was she, her 
very self, the cap protested — as she pointed a 
tragic finger at the swelling, rounded line of her 
firm bodice — it was she who had insisted that the 
water should not boil ; there had been ladies — cles 
V7'a{es anglaises — here, only last summer, who 
would not that the water should boil, when their 
tea was made. And now, it appears that they 
were wrong, " detail 2^vohahlement une fantaisie de 
la part de ces dames." Would we wait for an- 
other cup ? It would take but an instant, it was 
a little mistake, so easy to remedy. But this mis- 
take, like many another, like crime, for instance, 
could never be remedied, we smilingly told her ; 



156 THREE NORMANDY INN 8. 

a smile that cliangecl her solicitous remorse to a 
humorist's view of the situation. 

Another humorist, one accustomed to view the 
world from heights known as trapeze elevations, 
we met a little later on our way out of the narrow 
upper streets ; he was also looking- down over 
Trouville. It was a motley figure in a Pierrot garb, 
with a smaller striped body, both in the stage 
pallor of their trade. These were somewhat start- 
ling objects to confront on a Normandy high-road. 
For clowns, however, taken by surprise, they were 
astonishingly civil. They passed their " honjour " 
to us and to the coachman as glibly as though ac- 
costing us from the commoner circus distance. 

" They have come to taste of the fresh air, they 
have," laconically remarked our driver, as his 
round Norman eyes ran over the muscled bodies 
of the two athletes. " I had a brother who was 
one — I had ; he was a famous one — he was ; he 
broke his neck once, when the net had been for- 
gotten. They all do it — Us se cassent le cou tous, tot 
ou tard ! Allans — toi — t'as peur, toi ? " Chat 
noir's great back was quivering with fear ; he 
had no taste, himself, for shapes like these, spec- 
tral and wan as ghosts, walking about in the sun. 
He took us as far away as possible, and as quick- 
ly, from these reminders of the thing men call 
pleasure. 

We, meanwhile, were asking Pierre for a cer- 
tain promised chateau, one famous for its beauty, 
between Trouville and Cabourg. 

" It is here, madame — the chateau," he said, at 
last. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 157 

Two lions coucliant, seated on wide pedestals 
beneath a company of noble trees, were the only 
visible inhabitants of the dwelling-. There was a 
sweep of gardens : terraces that picked their way 
daintily down the cliffs toward the sea, a mansard 
roof that covered a large mansion— these were the 
sole aspects of chateau life to keep the trees com- 
pany. In spite of Pierre's urgent insistance that 
the view was even more beautiful than the one 
from the hill, we refused to exchange our first ex- 
periences of the beauty of the prospect for a second 
which would be certain to invite criticism ; for it is 
ever the critic in us that plays the part of Blue- 
beard to our many-wived illusions. 

We passed between the hedgerows with not even 
a sigh of regret. We were presently rewarded by 
something better than an illusion — by reality, 
which, at its best, can afford to laugh at the spec- 
tral shadow of itself. Near the chateau there lived 
on, the remnant of a hamlet. It w^as a hamlet, ap- 
parently, that boasted only one farm -house ; and the 
farm-house could show but a single hayrick. Be- 
neath the sloping roof, modelled into shape by a 
pitchfork and whose symmetrical lines put Man- 
sard's clumsy creation yonder to the blush, sat 
an old couple — a man and a woman. Both were 
old, with the rounded backs of the laborer ; the 
woman's hand was lying in the man's open palm, 
while his free arm was clasped about her neck 
with all the tenderness of young love. Both of 
the old heads were laid back on the pillow made 
by the freshly -piled grasses. They had done a lonsr 
day's work already, before the sun had reached its 



158 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

meridian; they were weary and resting- liere be- 
fore tliey went back to their toil. 

This was better than the view ; it made life seem 
finer than nature ; how rich these two looor old 
thing's looked, with only their poverty about them ! 

Meanwhile Pierre had quickly changed the rural 
mise-en-scene ; instead of pink hawthorn hedges we 
were in the midst of young- forest trees. Why is 
it that a forest is always a surprise in France % Is 
it that we have such a respect for French thrift, that 
a real forest seems a waste of timber "? There are 
forests and forests ; this one seemed almost a strip- 
ling in its tentative delicacy, compared to the ma- 
ture splendor of Fontainebleau, for example. This 
forest had the virility of a young savage ; it was 
neither dense nor vast ; yet, in contrast to the rib- 
bony grain-fields, and to the finish of the villa parks, 
was as refreshing to the eye as the right chord 
that strikes ui)on the ear after a succession of trills. 

In all this fair Normandy sea-coast, with its won- 
derful inland contrasts, there was but one disap- 
pointing note. One looked in vain for the old 
Normandy costumes. The blouse and the close 
white cap — this is all that is left of the wondrous 
headgear, the short brilliant petticoats, the em- 
broidered stomacher, and the Caen and Rouen jew- 
els, abroad in the fields only a decade ago. 

Pierre shrugged his shoulders when asked a 
question concerning these now pre historic cos- 
tumes. 

" Ah ! mademoiselle, you must see for yourself, 
that the peasant who doesn't despise himself 
dresses now in the fields as he would in Paris." 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 159 

As if in confirmation of Pierre's news of the 
fashions, there stepped forth from an avenue of 
trees, fringing a near farm-house, a wedding-party. 
The bride was in the traditional white of brides ; 
the little cortege following- the trail of her white 
gown, was dressed in costumes modelled on Bon 
Marche styles. The coarse peasant faces flamed 
from bonnets more flowery than the fields into 
which they were ijassing-. The men seemed 
choked in their high collars ; the agony of new 
boots was written on faces not used to concealing 
such form of torture. Even the groom was suffer- 
ing- ; his bliss was something- the gay little bride 
hanging- on his arm must take entirely for granted. 
It was enough greatness for the moment to wear 
broadcloth and a white vest in the face of men. 

" Laissez, laissez, Marguerite, it is clean here ; it 
will look fine on the green ! " cried the bride to an 
improvised train-bearer, who had been holding up 
the white alpaca. Then the full splendor of the 
bridal skirt trailed across the freshly mown grasses. 
An irrepressible murmur of admiration welled up 
from the wedding guests ; even Pierre made part 
of the chorus. The bridegroom stopped to mop 
his face, and to look forth proudly, through start- 
ing eyeballs, on the splendor of his possessions. 

"Ah! Lizette, thou art pretty like that, thou 
knowest. Faut t'embrasser, tu sais." 

He gave her a kiss full on the lips. The little 
bride returned the kiss with unabashed fervor. 
Then she burst into a loud fit of laughter. 

" How silly you look, Jean, with your collar 
burst open." 



160 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

The groom's enthusiasm had been too much for 
his toilet ; the noon sun and the excitements of 
the marriag-e service had dealt hardly with his 
celluloid fastenings. All the wedding- cortege 
rushed to the rescue. Pins, shouts of advice, 
pieces of twine, rubber fastening's, even knives, 
were offered to the now exploding- bridegroom ; 
everyone was helping him rex)air the ravages 
of his moment of bliss ; everyone excepting the 
bride. She sat down upon her train and wept 
from X3ure rapture of laughter. 

Pierre shook his head gravely, as he whipped 
up his steed. 

" Jean will repent it ; he'll lose worse things 
than a button, with Lizette. A woman who laughs 
like that on the threshold of marriage will cry 
before the cradle is rocked, and will make others 
weep. However, Jean won't be thinking of that — 
to-night." 

" Where are they going — along the highroad?" 

" Only a short distance. They turn in there," 
and he pointed with his whip to a near lane ; " they 
go to the farm-house now — for the wedding din- 
ner. Ah ! there'll be some heavy heads to-mor- 
row. For you know, a Norman peasant only 
really eats and drinks well twice in his life — y.dieu 
he marries himself and when his daughter mar- 
ries. Lizette's father is rich — the meat and the 
wines will be good to-night." 

Our coachman sighed, as if the thought of the 
excellence of the coming banquet had disturbed 
his own digestion. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUEEANT. 

The wedding- party was lost in a thicket. 
Pierre g-ave liis whip so resounding a 
snap, it was no surj^rise to iind ourselves 
rolling- over the cobbles of a villag-e 
street. 

" This is Dives, mesdames, this is the inn ! " 
Pierre drew iip, as he spoke, before a long, low 
faQade. 

Now, no one, I take it, in this Avorld enjoys be- 
ing duped. Surely disappointment is only a civil 
term for the varying degrees of fraud practised 
on the imagination. This inn, apparently, was to 
be classed among such frauds. It did not in the 
least, externally at least, fulfil Eenard's promises. 
He had told us to expect the marvellous and the 
mediaeval in their most approved period. Yet 
here we were, facing a featureless exterior ! The 
facade was built yesterday — that was writ large. 
all over the low, rambling structure. One end, 
it is true, had a gabled end ; there was also an 
old shrine niched in glass beneath the gable, and 
a low Norman gateway with rude letters carved 
over the arch. June was in its glory, and the 
barrenness of the commonplace structure was 
mercifully hidden by a wreath of pink and amber 



162 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

roses. But one scarcely drives twenty miles in 
the sun to look upon a fagade of roses ! 

Chat noir, meanwhile, was becoming- restless. 
Pierre had managed to keep his own patience 
well in hand. Now, however, he broke forth : 

" Shall we enter, my ladies ? " 

Pierre drove us straight into paradise ; for 
here, at last, within the courtyard, was the inn we 
had come to seek. 

A grou]D of low-gabled building-s surrounded an 
open court. All of the buildings were timbered, 
the diagonal beams of oak so old they were black 
in the sun, and the snowy whiteness of fresh plas- 
ter made them seem blacker still. The gabled 
roofs were of varying tones and tints ; some were 
red, some mossy green, some as gray as the skin 
of a mouse ; all were deeply, plentifully fur- 
rowed with the washings of countless rains, and 
they were bearded with moss. There were out- 
side galleries, beginning somewhere and ending 
anywhere. There were open and covered outer 
stairways so laden with vines they could scarce 
totter to the low heights of the chamber doors on 
which they opened ; and there were open sheds 
where huge farm-wagons were rolled close to the 
most modern of Parisian dog-carts. That not a 
note of contrast might be lacking, across the court- 
yard, in one of the windows beneath a stairway, 
there flashed the gleam of some rich stained glass, 
spots of color that were repeated, with quite a dif- 
ferent lustre, in the dappled haunches of rows of 
sturdy Percherons munching their meal in the 
adjacent stalls. Add to such an ensemble a va- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 103 

grant multitude of rose, honeysuckle, clematis, 
and wistaria vines, all blooming- in full rivalry of 
perfume and color ; insert in some of tlie corners 
and beneath some of the older casements archasic 
bits of sculpture — strange barbaric features with 
beards of Assyrian correctness and forms clad in 
the rigid draperies of the early Jumieges period 
of the sculptor's art ; lance above the roof-ridges 
the quaint polychrome finials of the earlier Pa- 
lissy models ; and rf3rowd the rough cobble-paved 
courtyard with a rare and distinguished assem- 
blage of flamingoes, peacocks, herons, cockatoos 
swinging from g-abled windows, and game-cocks 
that strut about in comjDany with pink doves — 
and you have the famous inn of Guillaume le Con- 
quer ant ! 

Meanwhile an individual, with fine deep-gray 
eyes, and a face grave, yet kindly, over which a 
smile was humorously breaking, was patiently 
waiting at our carriage door. He could be no 
other than Monsieur Paul, owner and inn-keeper, 
also artist, sculptor, carver, restorer, to whom, in 
truth, this miracle of an inn owed its present jDer- 
fection and picturesqueness. 

"We have been long expecting you, mesdames," 
Monsieur Paul's grave voice was saying. " Mon- 
sieur Penard had written to announce your com- 
ing. You took the trouble to drive along the 
coast this fine day ? It is idyllically lovely, is it 
not — under such a sun ? " 

Evidently the moment of enchantment was not 
to be broken by the worker of the spell. Mon- 
sieur Paul and his inn were one ; if one was a 



164 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

poem the otlier was a poet. The poet was also 
lined with the man of the practical moment. He 
had quickly summoned a host of serving-peojple to 
take charge of us and our lug-gage. 

" Lizette, show these ladies to the room of 
Madame de Sevigne. If they desire a sitting- 
room — to the Marmousets." 

The inn-keeper gave his commands in the quiet, 
well-bred tone of a man of the world, to a woman 
in peasant's dress. She led usxoast the open court 
to an inner one, where we were confronted with a 
building still older, apparently, than those grouped 
about the outer quadrangle. The peasant passed 
quickly beneath an overhanging gallery, draped in 
vines. She was next loreceding us ujd a spiral turret 
stairway ; the adjacent walls were hung here and 
there with faded bits of tapestry. Once more she 
turned to lead us along an open gallery ; on this 
several rooms appeared to open. On each door a 
different sign was painted in rude Gothic letters. 
The first was " Chambre de 1' Officier ; " the second, 
" Chambre du Cure," and the next was flung widely 
open. It was the room of the famous lady of the, 
incomparable Letters. The room might have been \ 
left — in the yesterday of two centuries — by the 
lady whose name it bore. There was a beautiful 
Seventeenth century bedstead, a couple of wide 
arm-chairs, with down pillows for seats, and a 
clothes press with the carvings and brass work pe- 
culiar to the ei^och of Louis XIY. The chintz 
hangings and draperies were in keeping, being 
copies of the brocades of that day. There w ere por- 
traits in miniature of the courtiers and the ladies 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 165 

of the Great Reign on the veiy ewers and basins. 
On the tlonnced dressing-table, with its antique 
glass and a diminiitive patch-box, now the recep- 
tacle of Lubin's powder, a sprig of the lovely Rose 
The was exhaling a faint, far-away century perfume. 
It was surely a stage set for a real comedy ; some 
of these high-coiffed ladies, who knows ? perhaps 
Madame de Sevigne herself would come to life,and 
give to the room the only thing it lacked — the liv- 
ing presence of that old world grace and speech. 

Presently, we sallied forth on a further voyage 
of discovery. We had reached the courtyard when 
Monsieur Paul crossed it ; it was to ask if, while 
waiting for the noon breakfast, Ave would care to 
sec the kitchen ; it was, perhaps, different to those 
now commonly seen in modern taverns. 

The kitchen which was thus modestly described 
as unlike those of our own century might easily, 
except for the appetizing smell of the cooking 
fowls and the meats, have been put under lock and 
key and turned over to a care-taker as a full-fledged 
culinary museum of antiquities. One entire side 
of the crowded but orderly little room was taken up 
by a huge open firejolace. The logs resting on the 
great andirons were the trunks of full-grown 
trees. On two of the spits were long rows of fowl 
and legs of mutton roasting ; the great chains were 
being slowly turned by a chef in the paper cap of 
his profession. In deep burnished brass bowls lay 
water-cresses ; in Caen dishes of an age to make a 
bric-a-brac collector turn green with envy, a Bear- 
ncdse sauce was being beaten by another gallic mas- 
ter-hand. Along the beams hung old Rouen plates 



1G6 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

and platters ; in tlie numberless carved Normandy- 
cupboards gleamed rare bits of Delft and Limoges ; 
the walls may be said to have been hung- with Nor- 
.mandy brasses, each as burnished as a jewel. The 
floor was sanded and the tables had attained that 
satiny finish which comes only with long usage 
and tireless use of the brush. There was also a 
shrine and a clock, the latter of antique Norman 
make and design. 

The smell of the roasting fowls and the herbs 
used by the maker of the sauces, a hungry palate 
found even more exciting than this most original 
of kitchens. There was a wine that went with the 
sauce ; this fact Monsieur Paul explained, on our 
sitting down to the noonday meal ; one which, in 
remembrance of Monsieur Renard's injunctions, 
he would suggest our trying. He crossed the 
courtyard and disappeared into the bowels of the 
earth, beneath one of the inn buildings, to bring 
forth a bottle incrusted with layers of moist dirt. 
This Sauterne was by some, Monsieur Paul smil- 
ingly explained, considered as among the real 
treasures of the inn. Both it and the sauce, we 
were enabled to assure him a moment later, had^ 
that golden softness which make French wines 
and French sauces at their best the rapture of the 
palate. 

In the courtyard, as our breakfast proceeded, a 
variety of incidents was happening. We were 
facing the open archway ; through it one looked 
out upon the high-road. A wheelbarrow passed, 
trundled by a peasant-girl ; the barrow stopped, 
the girl leaving it for an instant to cross the court. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 167 

" Bonjour, mere " 

" Bonjour, maflle — it goes well ? " a deep guttural 
voice responded, just outside of tlie window. 

" Justement — -I came to tell you tlie mare lias 
foaled and Jean will be late to-night." 

" Bien." 

"And Barbarine is still angry " 

" Make up witli her, my child — anger is an evil 
bird to take to one's heart," the deep voice went 
on. 

"It is my mother," explained Monsieur Paul. 
" It is her favorite seat, out yonder, on the green 
bench in the courtyard. I call it her judge's 
bench," he smiled, indulgently, as he went on. 
" She dispenses justice with more authority than 
any other magistrate in town. I am Mayor, as it 
happens, just now ; but madame my mother is far 
above me, in real power. She rules the town and 
the country about, for miles. Everyone comes to 
her sooner or later for counsel and command. You 
will soon see for yourselves." 

A murmur of assent from all the table accom- 
panied Monsieur Paul's prophecy. 

" Femme vraiment remarquable" hoarsely wdiis- 
pered a stout breakfaster, behind his napkin, be- 
tween two spoonsful of his soup. 

" Not two in a century like her," said my neigh- 
bor. 

"No — nor two in all France — nonplus" retorted 
the stout man. 

" She could rule a kingdom— hey, Paul "? " 

" She rules me — as you see— and a man is harder 
to govern than a province, they say," smiled Mon- 



168 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

sieur Paul with a humorous relish, obviously the 
offspring of experience. " In France, mesclames," 
he added, a sweeter look of feeling- coming into 
the deep eyes, " you see we are always children — 
foujours enfants—SiS long as the mother lives. We 
are never really old till she dies. May the good 
God preserve her ! " and he lifted his glass tow- 
ard the green bench. The table drank the toast, 
in silence. 




CHAPTER XVI. 

THE GEEEN BENCH. 

In the course of the first few clays 
we learned what all Dives had 
known for the past fifty years 
or so— that the focal point of 
interest in the inn was cen- 
tred in Madame Le Mois. She 
drew us, as she had the country 
around for miles, to circle close 
about her green bench. 

The bench was placed at the 
best possible point for one who, between dawn 
and darkness, made it the business of her life to 
keep her eye on her world. Not the tiniest 
mouse nor the most spectral shade could enter or 
slip away beneath the open archway without un- 









170 THREE NORMAN DT INNS. 

derg"oing inspection from that omniscient eye, that 
seemed never to blink nor to grow weary. This 
same eye could keep its watch, also, over the entire 
establishment, with no need of the huge body to 
which it was attached moving a hair's-breadth. 
Was it Nitouche, the head-cook, who was grum- 
bling because the kitchen-wench had not scoured 
the brass saucepans to the last j)oint of mirrory 
brightness? Behold both Nitouche and the trem- 
bling peasant-girl, together with the brasses as 
evidence, all could be brought at an instant's call, 
into the open court. Were the maids — were Ma- 
rianne or Lizette neglecting their work to flirt 
with the coachmen in the sheds yonder ? 

"Allons, mes files — doucement, la-bas — et vos lits? 
qui les fait — les hons saints du paradis, peut-ttre ? " 
And Marianne and Lizette would slink away to the 
waiting beds. Nothing escaped this eye. If the 
poule sultane was gone lame, limping in the inner 
quadrangle, madame's eye saw the trouble — a 
thorn in the left claw, before the feathered cripple 
had had time to reach her objective point, her 
mistress's capacious lap, and the healing touch of 
her skilful surgeon's fingers. Neither were the 
cockatoes nor the white parrots given license to 
make all the noise in the court-yard. When 
madame had an unusually loquacious moment, 
these more strictly professional conversationists 
were taught their jolace. 

" .E'ben, toi — and thou wishest to proclaim to the 
world what a gymnast thou art — swinging on thy 
perch ■? Quietly, quietly, there are also others 
who wish to praise themselves ! And now, my 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 171 

child, you were telling- me how good you had 
been to your old grandmother, and how she scolded 
you. Well, and how about obedience to our par- 
ents, hein — how about that % " This, as the old 
face bent to the maiden beside her. 

There was one, assuredly, who had not failed 
in his duty to his parents. Monsieur Paul's 
whole life, as we learned later, had been a willing 
sacrifice to the unconscious tyranny of his moth- 
er's affection. The son was g-ifted with those gifts 
which, in a Parisian atelier, would easily have made 
him successful, if not famous. He had the artis- 
tic endowment in an unusual degree ; it was all 
one to him, whether he modelled in clay, or carver 
in wood, or stone, or built a house, or restored old 
bric-a-brac. He had inherited the old world round- 
ness of artistic ability — his was the plastic renas- 
cent touch that might have developed into that of 
a Giotto or a Benvenuto. 

It was such a sacrifice as this that he had lain 
at his mother's feet. 

Think you for an instant the clever, witty, canny 
woman in Madame Le Mois looked upon her son's 
renouncing the world of Paris, and holding to the 
g-lories of Dives and their famous inn in the light 
of a sacrifice "? " Parhleu I " she would explode, 
when the subject was touched on, " it was a lucky 
thing for him that Paul had had an old mother to 
keep him from burning his fingers. Paris ! What 
did the provinces want with Paris ? Paris had 
need enough of them, the g-reat, idle, shiftless, dis- 
sipated, cruel old city, that ground all their sons 
to powder, and then scattered their ashes abroad 



172 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

like so many cinders. Oli, yes, Paris couldn't get 
along- without the provinces, to plunder and rob, 
to seduce their sons away from living good, pure 
lives, and to suck these lives as a pig would a 
trough of fresh water ! But the iDrovinces, if they 
valued their souls, shunned Paris as they would the 
devil. And as for artists — when it came to the 
young of the provinces, who thought they could 

paint or model 

" Tenez, madame — this is what Paris does for our 
young. My neighbor yonder," and she pointed, 
as only Frenchwomen point, sticking her thumb 
into the air to designate a point back of her 
bench, "my neighbor had a son like Paul. He 
too was always niggling at something. He nig- 
gled so well a rich cousin sent him up to Paris. 
Well, in ten years he comes back, famous, rich, 
too, with a wife and even a child. The establish- 
ment is complete. Well, they come here to break- 
fast one fine morning, with his mother, whom he 
put at a side table, with his nurse — he is ashamed 
of his mother, you see. Well, then his wife talks 
and I hear her. ' Mais, m.on Charles, c'est toi qui 
est le plus fameux — il n'y a que toi ! Tu es un dieu, 
tu sais — il n'y a pas deux comme toi I ' The fa- 
mous one deigns to smile then, and to eat of his 
breakfast. His digestion had gone wrong, it ap- 
l^ears. The Figaro had placed his name second 
on a certain list, after a rival's ! He alone must be 
great — there must not be another god of painting 
save him ! He ! He ! that's fine, that's greatness 
— to lose one's appetite because another is praised, 
and to be ashamed of one's old mother ! " 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 1T3 

Madame Le Mois's face, for a moment, was terri- 
ble to look upon. Even in her kindliest moments 
hers was a severe countenance, in spite of the true 
Norman curves in mouth and nostril — the laugh- 
ter-loving curves. Presently, however, the fierce- 
ness of her severity melted ; she had caught sight 
of her son. He was passing- her, now, with the 
wine bottles for dinner piled up in his arms. 

" You see," croaked the mother, in an exultant 
Avhisper, " I've saved him from all that — he's hap- 
jiy, for he still works. In the winter he can amuse 
himself, when he likes, with his carving and paint- 
brushes. Ah, tiens, du monde qui arrive ! " And 
the old woman seated herself, with an air of great 
dignity, to receive the new-comers. 

The world that came in under the low archway 
was of an altogether different character from any 
we had as yet seen. In a satin-lined victoria, amid 
the cushions, lay a young and lovely-eyed Anonyma. 
Seated beside her was a weak-featured man, with a 
huge flower decorating his coat lappel. This lat- 
ter individual divided the seat with an army of 
small dogs who leaped forth as the carriage 
stopped. 

Madame Le Mois remained immovable on her 
bench. Her face was as enigmatic as her voice, as 
it gave Suzette the order to show the lady to the 
salon bleu. The high Louis XV. slipper, as it 
picked its way carefully after Suzette, never 
seemed more distinctly astray than when its fair 
wearer confided her safety to the insecure footing 
of the rough, uneven cobbles. In a brief half-hoiir 
the frou-frou of her silken skirts was once more 



174 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

sweeping- the court-yard. She and her companion 
and the dogs chose the open air and a tent of sky 
for their banqueting- - hall. Soon all were seated 
at one of the many tables placed near the kitchen, 
beneath the rose-Yines. 

Madame gave the pair a keen, dissecting glance. 
Her verdict was delivered more in the emphasis 
of her shrug and the humor of her broad wink 
than in the loud-whispered — " Comme vous voyez, 
chere dame, de toutes sortes ici, chez nous — mais — 
toujours bon genre ! " 

The laughter of one who could not choose her 
world was stopped, suddenly, by the dipping of 
the thick fingers into an old snulf-box. That very 
afternoon the court-yard saw another arrival ; this 
one was treated in quite a different spirit. 

A dog-cart was briskly driven into the j^ard by 
a gentleman who did not appear to be in the best 
of humor. He drew his horse up with a sudden 
fierceness ; he as fiercely called out for the hostler. 
Monsieur Paul bit his lip ; but he composedly 
confronted the disturbed countenance perched on 
the driver's seat. The gentleman wished 

" I want indemnity — that is what I want. In- 
demnity for my horse," cried out a thick, coarse 
voice, with insolent authority. 

" For your horse % I do not think I under- 
stand " 

" O — h, I presume not," retorted the man, still 
more insolently ; " people don't usually understand 
when they have to pay. I came here a week ago, 
and stayed two days ; and you starved my horse — ■ 
and he died — that is what happened — he died ! " 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 175 

The whole court-yard now rang with the cries of 
the assembled household. The high, angry tones 
had called together the last serving-man and scul- 
lery-maid; the cooks had come out from their 
kitchens; they were brandishing their long-han- 
dled saucepans. The peasant-women were shriek- 
ing in concert with the hostlers, who were raising 
their arms to heaven in proof of their innocence. 
Dogs, cats, cockatoes swinging on their perches, 
peacocks, parrots, pelicans, and every one of the 
cocks swarmed from the barnyards and garden 
and cellars, to add their shrill cries and shrieks 
to the universal babel. 

Meanwhile, calm and unruffled as a Hindoo god- 
dess, and strikingly similar in general massiveness 
of structure and proportion to the common repro- 
duction of such deities, sat Madame Le Mois. 
She went on with her usual occupation ; she was 
dipping fresh-cut salad leaves into great bowls of 
water as quietly as if only her own little family 
were assembled before her. Once only she lifted 
her heavily-moulded, sagacious eyebrow at the 
irate dog-cart driver, as if to measure his pitiful 
strength. She allowed the fellow, however, to 
touch the point of abuse before she crushed him. 

Her first sentence reduced him to the ignominy 
of silence. All her people were also silent. What, 
the deep sarcastic voice chanted on the still air — 
what, this gentleman's horse had died — and yet 
he had waited a whole week to tell them of the 
great news ? He was, of a truth, altogether too 
considerate. His own memory, perhaps, was also 
a short one, since it told him nothing of the con- 



176 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

dition in which the poor beast had arrived, drop- 
ping- with fatigue, wet with sweat, his month all 
blood, and an eye as of one who already was past 
the consciousness of his suffering ? Ah no, mon- 
sieur should go to those who also had short mem- 
ories. 

" For we use our eyes — we do. We are used to 
deal with gentlemen — with Christians " (,the He- 
brew nose of the owner of the dead horse, even 
more plainly abused the privilege of its pedigree 
in proving its race, by turning- downward, at this 
onslaught of the mere's satire), " as I said, Avith 
Christians," continued the mere, pitilessly. " And 
do those g-entlemen comjplain and put upon us the 
death of their horses ? No, my tine sir, they re- 
turn — Us reviennent, et sont revenus depuis la Con- 
quete ! " 

With this fine climax madame announced the 
court as closed. She bowed disdainfully, with a 
grand and magisterial air, to the defeated claim- 
ant, who crept away, sulkily, through the low 
archway. 

" That is the way to deal with such vermin, 
Paul ; whip them, and they turn tail." And the\ 
mere shook out a great laugh from her broad 
bosom, as she regaled her wide nostrils with a 
fresh pinch of snuff. The assembled household 
echoed the laugh, seasoning- it with the glee of 
scorn, as each went to his allotted place. 




CHAPTEE XVII. 

THE WOELD THAT CAME TO DIVES. 

It was a world of many 
mixtures, of vario^^s 
ranks and liabits of life 
that found its way under 
the old archway, and sat 
down at the table d'hote 
breakfasts and dinners. 
Madame and her gifted 
son were far too clever 
to attemjjt to play the 
mistaken part of Provi- 
dence; there was no 
pointed assortment made of the sheep and the 
g'oats ; at least, not in a way to suggest the most 
remote intention of any such separation being pre- 
meditated. Such separation as there was came 
about in the most natural and in the pleasantest 
possible fashion. When Petitjean, the pedler, and 
his wife drove in under the Gothic sign, the huge 
lumbering vehicle was as quickly surrounded as 
when any of the neighboring notabilities arrived 
in emblazoned chariots. Madame was the first to 
waddle forward, nodding up toward the open hood 
as, with a short, brisk, business " Bonjour," she wel- 
comed the head of Petitjean and his sharp-eyed 
spouse looking- over the aprons. 



1T8 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

The pedler is always popular witli bis world ; 
and Dives knew Petit jean to be as honest as a 
pedler can ever hope to be in a world where small 
pence are only made large by some one being- sac- 
rificed on the altar of duplicity. Therefore it was 
that Petit] ean's hearse-like cart was always a wel- 
come visitor ; — one could at least be as sure of a 
just return for one's money in trading- with a ped- 
ler as from any other source in this thieving 
world. In the end, one always g-ot something- else 
besides the bargain to carry away with one. For 
Petit jean knew all the gossip of the province ; after 
dinner, when the stiff cider was working in his 
veins, he would be certain to tell all one wanted to 
know. Even Madame Le Mois, whose days were 
too busy in summer to include the daily reading 
of her newspaper, had grown dependent, in these 
her later years, on such sources of information as 
the pedler's garrulous tongue supplied. In the 
end she had found his talent for fiction quite as 
reliable as that of the journalists, besides being 
infinitely more entertaining, abounding in person- 
alities which were the more racy, as the pedler felt 
himself to be exempt from that curse of resi3onsi-\ 
bility, which, in French journalism, is so often a 
barrier to the full play of one's talent. 

Therefore it was that Petitjean and his bright- 
eyed spouse were always made welcome at Dives. 

" It goes well, Madame Jean % Ah, there you 
are. Well, hein, also ? It is long since we saw 
you." 

" Ah, madame, centuries, it is centuries since we 
were here. But what will you have ? with the bad 



THREE NOBMANDT INNS. 179 

season, tlie rains, the banks failing", the — but you, 
maclame, are well ? And Monsieur Paul % " 

"Ah, pa va tout doucement — Paul is well, the good 
God be praised, but I — I perish day by day " 

At which the entire court-yard was certain to 
burst into laughing- protest. For the whole house- 
hold of Guillaume le Conquerant was quite sure to 
be assembled about the great wheels of the ped- 
ler's wagon — only to look, not to buy, not yet. 
Petitjean and his wife had not dined yet, and a 
pedler's hunger is something to be respected — one 
made money by waiting for the hour of digestion. 
The little crowd of maids, hostlers, cooks, and 
scullery wenches, were only here to whet their ap- 
petite, and to greet Petitjean. Mtouche, the head 
chef, put a little extra garlic in his sauces that day. 
But in spite of this compliment to their palate, the 
pedler and his wife dined in the smaller room off 
the kitchen ; — Madame was desolated, but the salle- 
d-manger was crowded just now. One was really 
suffocated in there these days ! Therefore it was 
that the two ate the herbaceous sauces with an 
extra relish, as those conscious of having a larger 
space for the play of vagrant elbows than their 
less fortunate brethren. 

The gossip and trading came later. 

On the edge of the fading daylight there was 
still time to see ; the chosen articles could easily 
be taken into the brightly lit kitchen to be passed 
before the lamps. After the buying and bargain- 
ing came the talking. All the household could 
find time to spend the evening on the old benches ; 
these latter lined the sidewalk just beneath the low 



180 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

kitclien casements. They liad been here for many 
a long- year. 

What a history of Dives these old benches could 
have told ! What troopers, and beggars, and 
cowled monks, and wayfarers had sat there ! — each 
sitter helping- to wear away the wood till it had 
come to have the depressions of a drinking--troug-h. 
Night after nig-ht in the long centuries, as the dark- 
ness fell upon the hamlet — what tales and con- 
fidences, and what murmured anguish of remorse, 
what cries for help, what gay talk and light song 
must have welled up into the dome of sky ! 

Once, as we sat within the court-yard, under the 
stars, a young voice sang out. It was so still and 
quiet every word the youth phrased was as clear 
as his fresh young voice. 

" Tiens — it is Mathieu — he is singing Les Oreil- 
lers ! " cried Monsieur Paul, with an accent of 
pride in his own tone. 

The young voice sang on : 

' ' J' arrive en ce pays 
De Basse Normandie, 
Vous dire une chanson, 
S'il plait la compagnie ! " \ 

"It is an old Norman bridal song," Monsieur 
Paul went on, lowering his voice. " One I taught 
a lot of young boys and lads last winter — for a 
wedding held here — in the inn." 

Still the fresh notes filled the air : 

" Les amours sont partis 
Dans un bateau de verre ; 
Le bateau a casse 

a casse — 
Les amours sont parterre." 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 181 

"How the old women lauglied — and cried — at 
once ! It was years since tliey had heard it — the 
old song". And when these boys — their sons and 
grandsons — sang it, and I had trained them well — 
they wept for pure delight." 

Again the song went on : 



' ' Ouvrez la porte, ouvrez ! 
Nouvelle mariee, 
Car si vous ne Voiivrez 
Vous serez accusee.'''' 

" I dressed all the young girls in old costumes," 
our friend continued, still in a whisper. " I ran- 
sacked all the old chests and closets about here. I 
got the ladies of the chateaux near by to aid me ; 
they were so interested that many came down 
from Paris to see the wedding. It was a iDretty 
sight, each in a different dress ! Every century 
since the thirteenth was represented." 

" Attendez d, demain, 
Lafratche matinee, 
Quand mon oiseau prive 
Aura p7'is sa volee ! " 

Clear, strong, free rang the young tenor's voice 
— and then it broke into " Comment — tu dis que 
Claire est Id ? " whereat Monsieur Paul smiled. 

" That will be the next wedding — what shall I 
devise for that % That will also be the ending of 
a long lawsuit. But he should have sung the 
last verse — the prettiest of all. Mathieu ! " Paul 
lifted his voice, calling into the dark. 



182 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

"Oui, Monsieur Paul ! " 

" Sino: us the last verse " 



" Dans sejardin du Roi 
A pris sa reposee, 
Cueillant le romarin 
La — vande — houton — nee " 

The last notes were but faint vibrations, coming- 
from a lengthening- distance. 

" Ah ! " and Monsieur Paul breathed a sigh. 
" They don't care about singing. They are doing 
it all the time — they are so much in love. The 
fathers' lawsuit ended only last month. They've 
waited three years — happy Claire — happy Ma- 
thieu ! " 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 



THE CONVERSATION OF PATEIOTS. 




The world that found its way to 
the mayor's table at this early 
. period of the summer season 
was largely composed of the 
class that travels chiefly to 
amuse others. The commer- 
cial gentlemen in France, how- 
ever, have the outward bearing 
of those who travel to amuse themselves. The 
selling of other people's goods — it is surely as 
good an excuse as any other for seeing the world ! 
Such an occupation offers an orator, one gifted 
in conversational talents — talents it would be a 
pity to see buried in the domestic napkin — a fine 
arena for display. 

The French commercial traveller is indeed a 
genus apart ; he makes a fetich of his trade ; he 
preaches his propaganda. The fat and the lean, 
the tall and the little, the well or meanly dressed 
representatives of the great French houses who 
sat down to dine, as our neighbors or vis-a-vis, 
night after night, were, on the whole, a great credit 
to their country. Their manners might have been 
mistaken for those of a higher rank; their gifts 



184 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

as talkers were of sucli an order as to make listen- 
ing the better part of discretion. 

Dining" is always a serious act in France. At 
this inn the sauces of the cltef, with their reputa- 
tion behind them, and the proof of their real ex- 
cellence before one, the dinner-hour was elevated 
to the importance of a ceremony. How the petty 
merchants and the commercial gentlemen ate, at 
first in silence, as if respecting the appeal im- 
posed by a great hunger, and then warming into 
talk as the acid cider was j)assed again and again ! 
What crunching of the sturdy, dark-colored bread 
between the great knuckles ! What huge helps 
of the famous sauces ! What insatiable appetites ! 
What nice appreciation of the right touch of the 
tricksy garlic ! What nodding of heads, clinking 
of glasses, and warmth of friendship established 
over the wine-cups ! At dessert everyone talked 
at once. On one occasion the subject of Gam- 
betta's death was touched on ; all the table, as one 
man, broke out into an effervescence of i^olitical 
babble. 

" What a loss ! What a death-blow to France 
was his death ! " exclaimed a heavy young man in^ 
a pink cravat. 

"If Gambetta had lived, Alsace and Lorraine 
would be ours now, without the firing of a gun ! " 
added an elderly merchant at the foot of the table. 

" Ah — h ! without the firing of a gun they will 
come to us yet. I tell you, without the firing of a 
gun — unless we insist on a battle," explosively re- 
joined a fiery -hued little man sitting next to Mon- 
sieur Paul ; " but you will see — we shall insist. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 18^ 

There is between us and Germany an inextin- 
guishable hate~and we must kill, kill, right and 

left!" ,-, . 1 

" Allo7is—allons ! " protested the table, m chorus. 
"Yes yes, a general massacre, that is what we 
want ; that is what we must have. Men, women, 
and children-all must fall. I am a married man 
^but not a woman or a child shall escape— when 
the time comes," continued the fiery-eyed man 
getting more and more ferocious as he warmed 
with the thought of his revenge. 

"What a monster ! " broke in Madame Le Mois, 
her deep base notes unruffled by the spectacle of 
her bloodthirsty neighbor's violence; "you-to 
bayonet a woman with a child in her arms ! " 

"I would— I would " 

" Then you would be more cruel than they were. 
They treated our women with respect." 

There was a murmur of assenting applause, at 
this sentiment of justice, from the table. But the 
fiery-eyed man was not to be put down. 

" Oh, yes, they were generous enough m '71, but 
I should remember their insults of 1815! " 

-Ancieime Ustoire-Qar said the mere, dismiss- 
ing the subject, with a humorous wmk at the 

"^"As you see" was Monsieur Paul's comment 
on the conversation, as we were taking our after- 
dinner stroll in the garden-" as you see, that 
sort of person is the bad element in our country- 
the dangerous element-unreasoning, revengeful, 
and ignorant. It is such men as he who still up- 
hold hatreds and keep the flame alive, it is 



186 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

better to have no talent at all for politics — to be 
harmless like me, for instance, whose worst vice is 
to buy up old laces and carvings.' 

" And roses " 

" Yes — that is another of my vices — to perpetu- 
ate the old varieties. They call me along our 
coast— the millionnaire— of roses ! Will you have 
a ' Marie Louise,' mademoiselle % " 

The garden was as complete in its old-time aspect 
as the rest of the inn belongings. Only the older, 
rarer varieties of flowers and rose-stalks had been 
chosen to bloom within the beautifully arranged 
inclosure. Citronnelle, purple irises, fringed asters, 
sage, lavender, rose-2:)eche, bachelor's-button, the 
d'Horace, and the wonderful electric fraxinelle, 
these and many other shrubs and jolants of the 
older centuries were massed here with the taste 
of one difficult to please in horticultural arrange- 
ments. Our after-dinner walks became an event 
in our day. At that hour the press of the day's 
work was over, and Madame Mere or Monsieur 
Paul were always ready to join us for a stroll. 

" For myself, I do not like large gardens," Mon- 
sieur Paul remarked, during one of these after- 
dinner saunters. " The monks, in the old days, 
knew just the right size a garden should "be — 
small and sheltered, with walls — like a strong 
arm about a iDretty woman — to protect the shrubs 
and flowers. One should enter the garden, also, 
by a gate which must click as it closes — the click 
tickles the imagination — it is the sound hence- 
forth connected with silence, with perfumes and 
seclusion. How far away we seem now, do we 



THREE NOMMANDT INNS. 187 

not ? — from the bustle of the inn court-yard — and 
yet I could throw a stone into it." 

The only saunterers besides ourselves were the 
flamingo, who, cautiously, timorously picked his 
way — as if he were conscious he was only a bunch 
of feathers hoisted on stilts ; the white parrot, 
who was wabbling- across the lawn to a favorite 
perch in the leaves of a tropical palm ; and the 
peacock, whose train had been spread with a due 
regard to effect across a bed of jDurple irises, with 
a view to annihilating the brilliancy of their rival 
hues. 

The bit of sky framed by these four garden 
walls always seemed more delicate in tone than 
that which covered the open court-yard. The 
birds in the bushes had moments of melodious 
outbursts they did not, apparently, indulge in 
along the high-road. And what with the fading 
lights, the stars pricking their way among the 
palms, the scents of flowers, and the talk of a 
poet, it is little wonder that this twilight hour in 
the old garden was certain to be the most lyrical 
of the twenty-four. 



CHAPTEK XIX. 

IN LA CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS. 

" It is the winters, mesclames, that 
are hard to bear. 
They are long- — 
they are dull. No 
one passes along* 
the hig"h road. It 
is then, when sometimes the snow is piled knee- 
deep in the court-yard, it is then I try to amuse 
myself a little. Last year I did the Jumieg-es 
sculptures ; they fit in well, do they not 1 " 

It was raining-; and Monsieur Paul was paying- 
us an evening- call. A g-reat fire was burning- in 
the beautiful Francois I. fireplace of our sitting-- 
room, the famous Chambre des Marmousets. We 
had not consented that any of the lig-hts should 
be lit, althoug-h the lovely little Louis Xlv\, 
chandelier and the antique brass sconces were 
tempting-ly filled with fresh candles. The flames 
of the g-reat log-s would suffer no rival illumina- 
tions ; if the trunks of full-g-rown trees could not 
sufiice to light up an old room, with low-raftered 
ceilings, and a mass of bric-a-brac, what could a 
few thin waxen candles hope to do t 

On many other occasions we had thoug-ht our 
marvellous sitting--room had had exceptional mo- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 189 

ments of beauty. To turn in from the sunlit, 
open court-yard ; to pass beneatli the vine-hung- 
g-allery ; to lift the g-reat latch of the low Gothic 
door and to enter the rich and sumptuous inte- 
rior, where the light came, as in cathedral aisles, 
only through the jewels of fourteenth - century 
g-lass ; to close the door ; to sit beneath the pris- 
matic shower, ensconced in a nest of old tapestried 
cushions, and to let the eye wander over the 
wealth of carvings, of ceramics, of Spanish and 
Normandy trousseaux chests, on the collection of 
antique chairs, Dutch porcelains, and priceless em- 
broideries — all the riches of a museum in a living- 
room — such a moment in the Marmousets we had 
tested again and again with delectable results. 
At twilight, also, when the garden was submerged 
in dew, this old seigneurial chamber was a re- 
treat fit for a sybarite or a modern aesthete. The 
stillness, the soft luxurious cushions, the rich dusk 
thickening in the corners, the complete isolation 
of the old room from the noise and tumult of the 
inn life, its curious, its delightful unmodernness, 
made this Marmouset room an ideal setting for 
any mediaeval picture. Even a sentiment tinct- 
ured with modern cynicism would, I think, have 
borrowed a little antique fervor, if, like the pho- 
tographic neg"ative our nineteenth-century emo- 
tionalism somewhat too closely resembles, in its 
colorless indefiniteness, the sentiment were suffi- 
ciently exposed, in point of time and degree of 
sensitiveness, to the charm of these old surround- 
ings. 

On this particular evening, however, the patter- 



190 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

ing of the rain witliout on the cobbles and the 
great blaze of the fire within, made the old room 
seem more beautiful than we had yet seen it. 
Perhajos the capture of our host as a guest was 
the added treasure needed to complete our collec- 
tion. Monsieur Paul himself was in a mood of 
prodigal liberality ; he was, as he himself neatly 
termed the phrase, ripe for confession ; not a se- 
cret should escaxae revelation ; all the inn mys- 
teries should yield up the fiction of their frauds ; 
the full nakedness of fact should be given to us. 

" You see, clieres dames, it is not so difficult to 
create the beautiful, if one has a little taste and 
great patience. My inn — it has become my 
hobby, my pride, my wife, my children. Some 
men marry their art, I esjDoused my inn. I found 
her poor, tattered, broken-down in health, if you 
will ; verily, as your Shakespeare says of some 
country wench : ' a poor thing but mine own.' " 
Monsieur Paul's possession of the English lan- 
guage was scarcely as complete as the storehouse 
of his memory. He would have been surprised, 
doubtless, to learn he had called j)Oor Audrey, " a 
pure ting, buttaire my noon ! " 

" She was, however," he continued, securely, in 
his own richer Norman, " though a wench, a beau- 
tiful one. And I vowed to make her glorious. 
' She shall be famous,' I vowed, and — and — bet- 
ter than most men I have kept my vow. All 
France now has heard of Guillaume le Conque- 
ant ! " 

The pride Monsieur Paul took in his inn was 
indeed a fine thing to see. The years of toil he 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 191 

had spent on its walls and in its embellishment 
had brought him the recompense much giving- 
always brings ; it had enriched him quite as 
much as the wealth of his taste and talent had 
bequeathed to the inn. Latterly, he said, he had 
travelled much, his collection of curios and antiq- 
uities having called him farther afield than many 
Frenchmen care to wander. His love of Delft 
had taken him to Holland ; his passion for Span- 
ish leather to the country of Velasquez ; he must 
have a Virgin, a genuine fifteenth-century Virgin, 
all his own ; behold her there, in her stiff wooden 
skirts, a Neapolitan captive. The brass braziers 
yonder, at which the courtiers of the Henris had 
warmed their feet, stamping the night out in cold 
ante-chambers, had been secured at Blois ; and 
his collection of tapestries, of stained glass, of 
Normandy brasses, and Breton carvings had made 
his own coast as familiar as the Dives streets. 

" The priests who sold me these, madame," he 
went on, as he picked up a priest's chasuble, now 
doing duty as a table covering " would sell their 
fathers and their mothers. It is all a question of 
price." 

After a review of the curios came the history of 
the human collection of antiquities who had peo- 
pled the inn and this old room. 

Many and various had been the visitors who 
had slept and dined here and gone forth on their 
travels along the high-road. 

The inn had had a noble origin ; it had been 
built by no less a personage than the great Will- 
iam himself. He had deemed the spot a fitting 



192 THREE NOBMANDY INNS. 

one in wliicli to build his boats to start fortli for 
his modest project of conquering England. He 
could watch their construction in the waters of 
Dives Eiver — that flows still, out yonder, among- 
the grasses of the sea-meadows. For some years 
the Norman dukes held to the inn, in memory of 
the success of that clever boat-building. Then 
for five centuries the inn became a manoir — the 
seigneurial residence of a certain Sieur de Sem- 
illy. It was his arms we saw yonder, joined to 
those of Savoy, in the door panel, one of the 
family having married into a branch of that great 
house. 

Of the famous ones of the world who had trav- 
elled along this Caen post-road and stopped the 
night here, humanly tired, like any other humble 
wayfarer, was a hurried visit from that king who 
loved his trade — Louis XI. He and his suite 
crowded into the low rooms, grateful for a bed 
and a fire, after the weary pilgrimage to the 
heights of Mont St. Michel. Louis's piety, how- 
ever, was not as lasting- in its physically exhaust- 
ive effects, as were the fleshly excesses of a 
certain other king — one Henri IV., whose over-apX 
preciation of the oysters served him here, caused 
a royal attack of colic, as you may read at your 
pleasure in the State Archives in Paris — since, 
quite rightly, the royal secretary must write the 
court physician every detail of so im^Dortant an 
event. What with these kingly travellers and 
such modern uncrowned kings as Puvis de Cha- 
vannes, Dumas, George Sand, Daubigny, and Troy- 
on, together with a goodly number of lesser great 



THREE NOBMANDY INNS. 193 

ones, tlie famous little inn has had no reason to 
feel itself slighted by the great of any centnry. 
Of all this motley company of notabilities there 
were two whose visits seemed to have been in- 
definitely prolonged. There was nothing-, in this 
present flowery, picturesque assemblag-e of build- 
ings, to suggest a certain wild drama enacted here 
centuries ago. Nothing- either in yonder tender 
skj^, nor in the silvery foliage on a fair day, which 
should conjure up the image of William as he 
must have stood again and again beside the little 
river; nor of the fury of his impatience as the 
boats were building all too slowly for his hot 
hoioes ; nor of the strange and motley crew he had 
summoned there from all corners of Europe to cut 
the trees ; to build and launch boats ; to sail them, 
finally, across the strip of water to that England 
he was to meet at last, to grapple with, and over- 
throw, even as the English huscarles in their turn 
bore down on that gay Minstrel Taillefer, who 
rode so insolently forth to meet them, with a song- 
in his throat, tossing- his sword in English eyes, 
still chanting- the song of Eoland as he fell. 
None of the inn features were in the least informed 
with this great, imiiressive picture of its past. 
Yet does William seem by far the most realizable 
of all the personages who have inhabited the old 
house. 

There was another visitor whose presence Mon- 
sieur Paul declared was as entirely real as if she, 
also, had only just passed within the court-yard. 

" I know not why it is, but of all these great, ces 
fameux, Madame de Sevigne seems to me the 



194 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

nearest, in point of time. Her visit appears to , 
have happened only yesterday. I never enter her 
room but I seem to see her moving- about, talk- 
ing", laughing-, speaking- in epigrams. She men- 
tions the inn, you know, in her letters. She gives 
the details of her journey in full." 

I, also, knew not why ; but, later, after Mon- 
sieur Paul had left us, when he had shut himself 
out, along- with the pattering raindrops, and had 
closed us in with the warmth and the flickering 
fire-light, there came, with astonishing clearness, 
a vision of that lady's visit here. She and her 
company of friends might have been stopping, 
that very instant, without, in the open court. I, 
also, seemed to hear the very tones of their voices ; 
their talk was as audible as the wind rustling in 
the vines. In the growing stillness the vision 
grew and grew, till this was what I saw and heard s 



TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES. 



CHAPTBE XX. 



A SEVENTEENTH-CENTUEY REVIVAL. 





Outside the inn, some two 
hundred years ago, there 
was a great noise and con- 
fusion ; the cries of out- 
riders, of mounted guards- 
men and halberdiers, made 
the quiet village as noisy 
as a camp. An imposing 
cavalcade was being 
brought to a sharp stop ; 
for the outriders had sud- 
denly perceived the open 
inn entrance, with its raised portcullis, and they 
were shouting to the coachmen to turn in, beneath 
the archway, to the jjaved court-yard within. 

In an incredibly short space of time the open 
quadrangle presented a brilliant picture ; the 
dashing guardsmen were dismounting ; the maids 
and lackeys had quickly descended from their 
perches in the caleclies and coaches ; and the 
gentlemen of the household were dusting their 
wide hats and lace-trimmed coats. The halber- 
diers, ranging themselves in line, made a pvis- 
matic groui^ing beneath the low eaves of the 
picturesque old inn. In the very middle of the 



198 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

court yard stood a coacli, resplendent in painted 
panels and emblazoned with ducal arms. About 
tliis coacli, as soon as the four horses which drew 
the vehicle were brought to a standstill, cavaliers, 
footmen, and maids swarmed with effusive zeal. 
One of the footmen made a rush for the door; 
another let down the steps ; one cavalier was 
already presenting an outstretched, deferential 
hand, while still another held forth an arm, as 
rigid as a post, for the use of the occupants of the 
ducal carriage. 

Three ladies were seated within. Large and 
roomy as was the vehicle, their voluminous drap- 
eries and the x^araphernalia of their belongings 
seemed completely to fill the wide, deep seats. 
The ladies were the Duchesse de Chaulnes, Ma- 
dame de Kerman, and Madame de Sevigne. The 
faces of the Duchesse and of Madame de Kerman 
were invisible, being still covered with their 
masks, which, both as a matter of habit and of 
precaution against the sun's rays, they had re- 
ligiously worn during the long day's journey. 
But Madame de Sevigne had torn hers off; she 
was holding it in her hand, as if glad to be re-\ 
lieved from its confinement. 

All three ladies were in the highest possible 
spirits, Madame de Sevigne obviously being the 
leader of the jests and the laughter. 

They were in a mood to find everything amus- 
ing and delightful. Even after they had left the 
coach and were carefully picking their way over 
the rough stones — walking on their high-heeled 
"mules," at best, was always a dangerous per- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 199 

formance — their laughter and gayety continued in 
undiminished exuberance. Madame de Sevigne's 
keen sense of humor found so many things to 
ridicule. Could anything, for example, be more 
comical than the spectacle they presented as they 
walked, in state, with their long trains and high- 
heeled slippers, up these absurd little turret 
steps, feeling their way as carefully as if they 
were each a pickpocket or an assassin ? The long 
line behind of maids carrying their muffs, and of 
lackeys with the muff-dogs, and of jpages hold- 
ing their trains, and the grinning innkeeper, 
bursting with pride and courtesying as if he had 
St. Vitus's dance, all this crowd coiling round the 
rude spiral stairway — it was enough to make one 
die of laughter. Such state in such savage sur- 
roundings ! — they and their patch-boxes, and tow- 
ering head-gears and trains, and dogs and fans, 
all crowded into a palace fit only for i3easants ! 

When they reached their bedchambers the ridi- 
cule was turned into a condescending admiration ; 
they found their rooms unexpectedly clean and 
airy. The furniture was all antique, of interest- 
ing design, and though rude, really astonishingly 
comfortable. Beds and dressing-tables, mostly of 
Henry III.'s time, were elaborately canopied in 
the hideous crude draperies of that primitive 
epoch. How different were the elegant shapes 
and brocades of their own time! Fortunately 
their women had suitable hangings and draiDeries 
with them, as well, of course, as any amount of 
linen and any number of mattresses. The settees 
and benches would do very well, wdtli the aid of 



200 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

their own hassocks and cushions, and, after all, it 
was only for a night, they reminded the other. 

The toilet, after the heat and exposure of the 
day, was necessarily a long- one. The Duchesse 
and Madame de Kerman had their faces to make 
up — all the paint had run, and not a loatch was in 
its place. Hair, also, of this later de Maintenon 
period, with its elaborate artistic ranges of curls, 
to say nothing" of the care that must be given to 
the coif and the " foUette," these were matters that 
demanded the utmost nicety of arrangement. 

In an hour, however, the three ladies reassem- 
bled, in the panelled lower room — in " la Cham- 
bre de la Pucelle." In spite of the care her two 
companions had given to repairing the damages 
caused by their journey, of the three, Madame de 
Sevigne looked by far the freshest and youngest. 
She still wore her hair in the loosely flowing de 
Montespan fashion; a stjde which, though noAv 
out of date, was one that exactly suited her fair 
skin, her candid brow, and her brilliant eyes. 
These latter, when one examined them closely, 
were found to be of different colors ; but this pe- 
culiarity, which might have been a serious defect\ 
in any other countenance, in Madame de Sevigne's 
brilliant face was perhaps one cause of its extraor- 
dinarily luminous quality. Not one feature was 
perfect in that fascinatingly mobile face : the chin 
was a trifle too long for a woman's chin ; the lips, 
that broke into such delicious curves when she 
laughed, when at rest betrayed the firmness of 
her wit and the almost masculine quality of her 
reasoning judgment. Even her arms and hands 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 201 

and her shoulders were " mcd taiUes," as her con- 
temporaries would have told you. But what a 
charm in those irregular features ! What a seduc- 
tiveness in the ensemble of that not too-well-pro- 
portioned figure ! AVhat an indescribable radiance 
seemed to emanate from the entire jaersonality of 
this most captivating of women ! 

As she moved about the low room, dark with 
the trembling shadows of light that flowed from 
the bunches of candles in the sconces, Madame 
de Sevigne's clear complexion, and her unpow- 
dered chestnut curls, seemed to spot the room with 
light. Her companions, though dressed in the 
A'ery height of the fashion, were yet not half as 
catching to the eye. Neither their minute waists, 
nor their elaborate underskirts and trains, nor 
their tall goffered coifs (the duchesse's was not un- 
like a bishop's mitre, studded as it was with ruby- 
headed pins), nor the correctness of these ladies^ 
carefully placed patches, nor yet their painted 
necks and tinted eyebrows, could charm as did the 
unmodish figure of Madame de Sevigne — a figure 
so indifferently clad, and yet one so replete with 
its distinction of innate elegance and the sul^tle 
charm of her individuality. 

With the entrance of these ladies dinner was 
served at once. The talk flowed on ; it was, how- 
ever, more or less restrained by the presence of the 
always too curious lackej^s, of the bustling inn- 
keeper, and the gentlemen of the household in at- 
tendance on the party. As a spectacle, the little 
room had never boasted before of such an assem- 
blage of fashion and greatness. Never before had 



202 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

the air under tlie rafters been so loaded with 
scents and perfumes — these ladies seeming, indeed, 
to breathe out odors. Never before had there 
been grouped there such splendor of toilet, nor 
had such courtly accents been heard, nor such 
finished laughter. The fire and the candlelight 
were in comiDetition which should best light up 
the tall trans^Darent caps, the lace fichus, the bro- 
cade bodices, and the long trains. The little muff- 
dogs, released from their prisons, since the muffs 
were laid aside at dinner-time, blinked at the fire, 
curling their minute bodies — clipped lion-fashion 
— about the huge andirons, as they snored to kill 
time, knowing their own dinner would come only 
when their mistresses had done. 

After the dessert had been served the ladies 
withdrew ; they were preceded by the ever-bowing 
innkeeper, who assured them, in his most rever- 
ential tones, that they would find the room open- 
ing on the other court-yard even warmer and more 
comfortable than the one they were in. In spite 
of the walk across the paved court-yard and the 
enormous height of their heels, always a fact to be 
remembered, the ladies voted to make the change, \ 
since by that means they could be assured the 
more entire seclusion. Mild as was the May air, 
Madame de Kerman's hand-glass hanging at her 
side was quickly lifted in the very middle of the 
open court-yard ; she had scarcely passed the door 
when she had felt one of her patches blowing 
off. 

"I caught it just in time, dear duchesse," she 
cried, as she stood quite still, replacing it with a 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 203 

fresh one picked from her patch-box, as the others 
passed her. 

" The very best patch-maker I have found lives 
in the rue St. Denis, at the sign of La Perle des 
Mouches ; have you discovered him, dear friend ? " 
said the duchesse, as they walked on toward the 
low door beneath the galleries. 

" No, dear duchesse, I fear I have not even looked 
for him — the science of patches I have always 
found so much harder than the science of living ! "' 
gayly answered Madame de Sevigne. 

Madame de Kermanhad now rejoined them, and 
all three passed into la Chambre des Marmousets. 




CHAPTEK XXI. 

THE AFTEE-DINNER TALK OF THREE GREAT LADIES. 

The three ladies grouped them- 
selves about the fire, which 
thej^ found already lighted. 
The duchesse chose a Henry 
II. carved arm-chair, one, she 
laughingly remarked, quite 
large enough to have held both the King and Di- 
ana. A lackey carrying the inevitable muff-dogs, 
their fans, and scent-bottles, had followed the 
ladies ; he placed a hassock at the duchesse's feet, 
two beneath the slender feet of Madame de Ker- 
man, and, after having been bidden to open one of 
the casements, since it was still so light without, 
withdrew, leaving the ladies alone. 

Although Madame de Sevigne had comfortably 
ensconced herself in one of the deep window-seats,\ 
piling the cushions behind her, no sooner was the 
window opened than with characteristic impetu- 
osity she jumiDed up to look out into the country 
that lay beyond the leaded glass. In spite of the 
long day's drive in the open air, her ai3petite for 
blowing roses and sweet earth smells had not been 
sated. Madame de Sevigne all her life had been 
the victim of two loves and a passion ; she adored 
societj^ and she loved nature ; these were her 




MADAME DE SEVIGNfi. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 205 

lesser delights, that gave way before the chief 
idolatry of her soul, her adoration for her daugh- 
ter. 

As she stood by the open window, her charming- 
face, always a mirror of her emotions, was suf- 
fused with a glow and a bloom that made it seem 
young again. Her eyes grew to twice their com- 
mon size under the "wandering" eyelids, as her 
gaze roved over the meadows and across the tall 
grasses to the sea. A part of her youth was be- 
ing, indeed, vividly brought back to her ; the sight 
of this marine landscape recalled many memories ; 
and with the recollection her whole face and fig- 
ure seemed to irradiate something of the inward 
ardor that consumed her. She had passed this 
very road, through this same country before, long 
ago, in her youth, with her children. She half 
smiled at the remembrance of a description given 
of the impression produced by her appearance on 
the journey by her friend the Abbe Arnauld ; he 
had ecstatically compared her toLatona seated in 
an open coach, between a youthful Apollo and a 
young Diana. In spite of the abbe's poetical ex- 
travagance, Madame de Sevigne recognized,- in 
this moment of retrospect, the truth of the pict- 
ure. That, indeed, had been a radiant moment ! 
Her life at that time had been so full, and the 
rapture so complete — the rapture of possessing 
her children — that she could remember to have 
had the sense of fairly evaporating happiness. 
And now, the sigh came, how scattered was this 
gay group ! her son in Brittany, her daughter in 
Provence, two hundred leagues away ! And she, 



206 THREE NORMANBT INNS. 

an elderly Latona, mourning" her AiooUo and her 
diyine huntress, her incomparable Diana. 

The inextinguishable flame of youth was burn- 
ing still, however, in Madame de Sevigne's rich 
nature. This adventure, this amazing- adventure 
of three ladies of the court having to pass the 
night in a rude little Normandy inn, she, for one, 
was finding" richly seasoned with the spice of the 
unforeseen ; it would be something" to talk of and 
write about for a month hence at Chaulnes and at 
Paris. Their entire journey, in point of fact, had 
been a series of the most delightful episodes. It 
was now nearly a month since they had started from 
Picardy, from the castle of Chaulnes, going into 
Normandy via Rouen. They had been on a driving" 
tour, their destination being Rennes, which they 
would reach in a week or so. They had been trav- 
elling" in great state, Avith the very best coach, the 
very best horses ; and they had been guarded by a 
whole regiment of cavaliers and halberdiers. Ev- 
ery possible i3recaution had been taken ag"ainst 
their being disagreeably surprised on their route. 
Their chief fear on the journey had been, of course, 
the cry common in their day of " Au voleur ! " and 
the meeting of brigands and assassins ; for, once 
outside of Paris and the police reforms of that 
dear Colbert, and one must be prepared to take 
one's life in one's hand. Happily, no such misad- 
ventures had befallen them. The roads, it is true, 
they had found for the most part in a horrible 
condition ; they had been pitched about from one 
end of their coach to the other ; they might easily 
have imagined themselves at sea. The dust also 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 207 

had nearly blinded tliem, in spite of their masks. 
The other nuisances most difficult to i3ut up 
with had been the swarm of beggars that infested 
the roadsides ; and worst of all had been the 
army of crippled, deformed, and mang-y soldiers. 
These latter they had encountered everywhere; 
their whines and cries, their armless, legless bod- 
ies, their hideous filth, and their insolent impor- 
tunities, they had found a veritable pest. 

Another annoyance had been the over-zealous 
courtesy of some of the upper middle-class. 
Only yesterday, in the very midst of the dust and 
under the burning noon sun, they had all been 
forced to alight, to receive the homage tendered 
the duchesse, of some thirty women and as many 
men. Each one of the sixty must, of course, kiss 
the duchesse's hand. It was really an outrage to 
have exposed them to such a form of torture ! Poor 
Madame de Kerman, the delicate one of the party, 
had entirely collapsed after the ceremony. The 
duchesse also had been prostrated ; it had wearied 
her more than all the rest of the journey. Madame 
de Sevigne alone had not suffered. She was pos- 
sessed of a degree of physical fortitude which 
made her equal to any demand. The other two 
ladies, as well as she herself, were now experienc- 
ing the pleasant exhilaration which comes with 
the hour of rest after an excellent dinner. They 
were in a condition to remember nothing except 
the agreeable. Madame de Sevigne was the first 
to break the silence. 

She turned, with a brisk yet graceful abrupt- 
ness, to the two ladies still seated before the low 



208 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

fire. With a charming' outburst of enthusiasm 
she exclaimed aloud : 

" What a beauty, and youth, and tenderness this 
spring has, has it not "? " 

" Yes," answered the duchesse, smiling" g"ra- 
ciously into Madame de Sevigne's brilliantly lit 
face; "yes, the weather in truth has been perfect." 

" What an adorable journey we have had ! " con- 
tinued Madame de Sevigne, in the same tone, her 
ardor undampened by the cooler accent of her 
friend — she was used to having her enthusiasm 
greeted with consideration rather than response. 
" What a journey ! — only meeting with the most 
agreeable of adventures ; not the slightest incon- 
venience anywhere ; eating the very best of every- 
thing ; and driving through the heart of this en- 
chanting springtime ! " 

Her listeners laughed quietly, with an accent 
of indulgence. It was the habit of her world to 
find everything Madame de Sevigue did or said 
charming. Even her frankness was forgiven her, 
her tact was so perfect ; and her spontaneity had 
always been accounted as her chief excellence ; in 
the stifled air of the court and the ruelles it had 
been frequently likened to the blowing in of a 
fresh May breeze. Her laresent mood was one 
well known to both ladies. 

" Always ' pretty pagan,' dear madame," smiled 
Madame de Kerman, indulgently. " How well 
named — and what a ha^opy hit of our friend Ar- 
nauld d'Audilly ! You are in truth a delicious — 
an adorable pagan ! You have such a sense of the 
joy of living ! Why, even living in the country 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 209 

lias, it apioears, no terrors for you. We hear of 
your walking" about in the moonlight — you make 
your very trees talk, they tell us, in Italian — in 
Latin ; you actually pass whole hours alone with 
the hamadryads ! " There was just a suspicion of 
irony in Madame de Kerman's tone, in spite of its 
caressing- softness ; it was so impossible to con- 
ceive of anyone really finding- nature endurable, 
much less pretending- to discover in trees, and 
flowers anything amusing or sug-gestive of senti- 
ment ! 

But Madame de Sevigne was quite impervious 
to her friend's raillery. She responded, with per- 
fect good humor : 

" Why not ? — ^wliy not try to discover beauties 
in nature ? One can be so hai^py in a wood ! 
What a charming thing to hear a leaf sing ! I 
know few things more delightful than to watch 
the triumph of the month of May when the 
nightingale, the cuckoo, and the lark open the 
spring in our forests ! And then, later, come 
those beautiful crystal days of autumn — days that 
are neither warm, nor yet are they really cold ! 
And then the trees — how eloquent they can be 
made; with a little teaching they may be made 
to converse so charmingly. Bella cosa far niente, 
says one of my trees ; and another answers, Amor 
odit inertes. Ah, when I had to bid farewell to all 
my leaves and trees ; when my son had to dispose 
of the forest of Buron, to pay for some of his 
follies, you remember how I wept! It seemed to 
me I could actually feel the grief of those dispos- 
sessed sylvans and of all those homeless dryads ! " 



210 THREE NORMANDT INNS. 

"It is tliis, dear friend — -tliis life yon lead at 
Les Rocliers — and your entlmsiasm, which keep 
you so young. Yes, I am sure of it. How incon- 
ceivably young", for instance, you are looking* this 
very evening ! You and the glow out yonder 
make youth seem no longer a legend." 

The duchesse delivered her flattering little 
speech with a caressing tone. She moved gently 
forward in her chair, as if to gain a better view of 
the twilight and her friend. At the sound of the 
duchesse's voice Madame de Sevigne again turned, 
with the same charming smile and the quick im- 
pulsiveness of movement common to her. Dur- 
ing her long monologue she had remained stand- 
ing ; but she left the window now to regain her 
seat amid the cushions of the window. There 
was something better than the twilight and the 
spring in the air ; here, within, were two delight- 
ful friends — and listeners ; there was before her, 
also, the prospect of one of those endless conver- 
sations that were the chief delight of her life. 

She laughed as she seated herself — a gay, frank, 
hearty little laugh — and she spread out her 
hands with the opening of her fan, as, with her \ 
usual vivacious spontaneity, her mood changed. 

" Fancy, dear duchesse, the punishmenl: that 
comes to one who commits the crime of looking 
young — younger than one ought ! My son-in-law, 
M. de Grignan, actually avows he is in daily terror 
lest I should give him a father-in-law i " 

All three ladies laughed gayly at this absurd- 
ity; the subject of Madame de Sevigne's remarry- 
ing had come to be a venerable joke now It had 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 211 

been talked of at court and in society for nearly 
forty years ; but sucli was the conquering- power 
of her charms that these two friends, her listeners, 
saw nothing- really extravagant in her son-in-law's 
fear ; she was one of those rare women who, even 
at sixty, continue to suggest the altar rather than 
the grave. Madame de Kerman was the first to 
recover her breath after the laughter. 

" Dear friend, you might assure him that after 
a youth and the golden meridian of your years 
passed in smiling- indifference to the sighs of a 
Prince de Conti, of a Turenne, of a Fouquet, of a 
Bussy de Rabutin, at sixty it is scarcely likely 
that " 

" Ah, dear lady ! at sixty, when one has the 
complexion and the curls, to say nothing of the 
eyes of our dear enchantress, a woman is as dan- 
gerous as at thirty ! " The duchesse's flattery 
was charmingly put, with just enough vivacity of 
tone to save it from the charge of insipidity. 
Madame de Sevigne bowed her curls to her waist. 

" Ah, dear duchesse, it isn't age," she retorted, 
quickly, "that could make me commit follies. 
It is the fact that that son-in-law of mine actually 
surrounds me with spies— he keeps me in perpet- 
ual surveillance. Such a state of captivity is capa- 
ble of making me forget everything ; I am begin- 
ning to develop a i^ositive rage for follies. You 
know that has been my chief fault — always ; discre- 
tion has been left out of my composition. But I say 
now, as I have always said, that if I could manage 
to live two hundred years, I should become the 
most delightful person in the world ! " 



212 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

She herself was the first to lead in the laug-hter 
that followed her outburst ; and then the du- 
chesse broke in : 

" You talk of defects, dear friend ; but reflect 
what a life yours has been. So surrounded and 
courted, and yet you were always so guarded ; so 
free, and yet so wise ! So gay, and yet so 
chaste ! " 

" If you rubbed out all those flattering- colors, 
dear duchesse, and wrote only, ' She worshipped 
her children, and preferred friends to lovers,' the 
portrait would be far nearer to the truth. It is 
easy to be chaste if one has only known one pas- 
sion in one's life, and that the maternal one ! " 

Again a change passed over Madame de Sevig- 
ne's mobile face; the bantering tone was lost in a 
note of deep feeling. This gift of sensibilitj'" had 
always been accounted as one of Madame de Sevig- 
ne's chief charms ; and now, at sixty, she was as 
completely the victim of her moods as in her 
earlier youth. 

" Where is your daughter, and how is she ? " 
sympathetically queried the duchesse. 

" Oh, she is still at Grignan, as usual ; she is 
well, thank God. But, dear duchesse, after all 
these years of separation I suffer still, cruelly." 
The tears sprang to Madame de Sevigne's eyes, as 
she added, with passion and a force one would 
scarcely have exjDected in one whose manners 
were so finished, " the truth is, dear friends, I can- 
not live without her. I do not find I have made 
the least xjrogress in that career. But, even now, 
believe me, these tears are sweeter than all else 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 213 

in life — more enrapturing- than the most trans- 
porting- joy ! " 

Madame de Kerman smiled tenderly into the 
rapturous mother's face ; but the duchesse moved, 
as if a little restless and uneasy under this shower 
of maternal feeling. For thirty years her friends 
had had to listen to Madame de Sevigne's rhap- 
sodies over the perfections of her incomi^arable 
daughter. Although sensibility was not the emo- 
tional fashion of the day, maternity, in the loerson 
of Madame de Sevigne, had been apotheosized 
into the queen of the passions, if only because of 
its rarity ; still, even this lady's most intimate 
friends sometimes wearied of banqueting off the 
feast of Madame de Grignan's virtues. 

" Have you heard from Madame de La Fayette 
recently ? " asked the duchesse, allowing just time 
enough to elapse, before putting the question, for 
Madame de Sevigne's emotion to subside into com- 
posure. The duchesse was too exquisitely bred to 
allow her impatience to take the form of even the 
appearance of haste. 

" Oh, yes," was Madame de Sevigne's quiet re- 
ply : the turn in the conversation had been in- 
stantly understood, in spite of the delicacy of the 
duchesse's methods. " Oh, yes — I have had a line 
— only a line. You know how she detests writing, 
above all things. Her letters are all the same — 
two lines to say that she has no time in which to 
say it ! " 

"Did she not once write you a pretty little series 
of epigrams about not writing ? " 

" Oh, yes — some time ago, when I was with my 



214 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

daugliter. I've quoted them so often, they have 
become famous. ' You are in Provence, my 
beauty ; your hours are free, and your mind still 
more so. Your love for corresponding- with every- 
one still endures within you, it appears ; as for me, 
the desire to write to any human being has long- 
since passed away — forever ; and if I had a lover 
who insisted on a letter every morning, I should 
certainly break with him ! ' " 

" What a curious compound she is ! And how 
well her soubriquet becomes her ! " 

" Yes, it is perfect — ' Le Brouillard ' — the fog. 
It is indeed a fog that has always enveloped her, 
and what charming horizons are disclosed once it 
is lifted ! " 

"And her sensibilities — of what an exquisite 
quality ; and what a rare, precious type, indeed, is 
the whole of her nature ! Do you remember how 
alarmed she would become when listening to 
music ? " 

" And yet, with all this sensibility and delicacy 
of organization there was another side to her 
nature." Madame de Kerman paused a moment 
before she went on ; she was not quite sure how 
far she dared go in her criticism ; Madame de La 
Fayette was such an intimate friend of Madame 
de Sevigne's. 

" You mean," that lady broke out, with unhesi- 
tating candor, " that she is also a very selfish per- 
son. You know that is my daughter's theory of 
her — she is always telling me how Madame de La 
Fayette is making use of me ; that while her sen- 
sitiveness is such that she cannot sustain the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 215 

tragedy of a farewell visit — if I am going- to Les 
Rochers or to Provence, when I go to paj^ my last 
visit I must pretend it is only an ordinary run- 
ning-in ; yet her delicacy does not prevent her 
from making very indelicate proposals, to suit her 
own convenience. You remember what one of her 
commands was, don't you ? " 

" No," answered the duchesse, for both herself 
and her companion. " Pray tell us." 

Madame de Sevigne went on to narrate that 
once, when at Les Piochers, Madame de La Fayette 
was quite certain that she, Madame de Sevigne, 
was losing her mind, for no one could live in the 
provinces and remain sane, poring over stupid 
books and sitting over fires. 

" She was certain I should sicken and die, be- 
sides losing the tone of my mind," laughed Ma- 
dame de Sevigne, as she called up the picture of 
her dissolution and rapid disintegration; "and 
therefore it was necessary at once that I should 
come up to Paris. This latter command was de- 
livered in the tone of a judge of the Supreme 
Court. The penalty of my disobedience was to be 
her ceasing to love me. I was to come up to Paris 
directly— on the minute ; I was to live with you, 
dear duchesse ; I was not to buy any horses until 
spring ; and, best of all, I was to find on my arri- 
val a purse of a thousand crowns which would be 
lent me without interest! What a proposition, 
mon Dieu, what a proposition ! To have no house 
of my own, to be dependent, to have no carriage, 
and to be in debt a thousand crowns ! " 

As Madame de Sevigne lifted her hands the 



216 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

laces of her sleeves were fairly trembling- with the 
force of her indig-nation. There were 'certain 
things that always put her in a passion, and Ma- 
dame de La Fayette's peculiarities she had found 
at times unendurable. Her listeners had followed 
her narration with the utmost intensity and ab- 
sorption. When she stopped, their eyes met in a 
look of assenting comment. 

"It was perfectly characteristic, all of it! She 
judged you, doubtless, by herself. She always 
seems to me, even now, to keep one eye on her 
comfort and the other on her purse ! " 

" Ah, dear duchesse, how keen you are ! " laugh- 
ingly acquiesced Madame de Sevigne, as with a 
shrug she accepted the verdict — her indignation 
melting- with the shrug. " And how right ! No 
woman ever drives better bargains, without moving 
a finger. From her invalid's chair she can conduct 
a dozen lawsuits. She spends half her existence 
in courting death ; she caresses her maladies : she 
positively hugs them ; but she can always be mi- 
raculously resuscitated at the word money ! " 

" Yes," added with a certain relish Madame de\ 
Kerman. " And this is the same woman who ' 
must be forever running- away from Paris because 
she can no longer endure the exertion of talking, 
or of replying-, or of listening; because she is 
wearied to extinction, as she herself admits, of 
saying g-ood-morning and good- evening. She 
must hide herself in some pastoral retreat, where 
simply, as she says, ' to exist is enough ; ' where 
she can remain, as it were, miraculously suspended 
between heaven and earth! " 



THREE NOBMANBT INNS. 217 

A ripple of amused laughter went round the 
little group; there was nothing these ladies en- 
joyed so keenly as a delicate dish of gossip, sea- 
soned with wit, and stuffed with epigrams. This 
talk was exactly to their taste. The silence and 
seclusion of their surroundings were an added 
stimulus to confidence and to a freer interchange 
of opinions about their world. Paris and Yer- 
sailles seemed so very far away ; it would appear 
safe to say almost anything about one's dearest 
friends. There was nothing to remind them of 
the restraints of levees, or the penalty indiscre- 
tion must pay for folly breathed in that whisper- 
ing gallery— the ruelle. It was indeed a delight- 
fufhour ; altogether an ideal situation. 

The fire had burned so low only a few embers 
were alive now, and the candles were beginning 
to flicker and droop in the sconces. But the three 
ladies refused to find the little room either cold 
or dark; their talk was not half done yet, and 
their muffs would keep them warm. The shadow 
of the deepening gloom they found delightfully 
provocative of confidences. 

After a short pause, while Madame de Kerman 
busied herself with tho tongs and the fagots, try- 
ing to reinvigorate the dying flames, the duchesse 
asked, in a somewhat more intimate tone than she 

had used yet : , . ■, n i t 

"And the duke-do you really think she loved 

the Duke de La Eochefoucauld ? " 

" She reformed him, dear duchesse ; at least she 
always proclaims his reform as the justification of 
her love." 



218 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

" You — you esteemed him yourself very higlily, 
did you not ? " 

" Oh, I loved him tenderly ; how could one help 
it ? He was the best as well as the most brilliant 
of men ! I never knew a tenderer heart ; domes- 
tic joys and sorrows affected him in a waj^ to ren- 
der him incomparable. I have seen him weep over 
the death of his mother, who only died eig-ht years 
before him, you know, with a depth of sincerity 
that made me adore him." 

" He must in truth have been a very sincere per- 
son." 

" Sincere ! " cried Madame de Sevig-ne, her ej^es 
flaming-. " Had you but seen his deathbed ! His 
bearing was sublime ! Believe me, dear friend, 
it was not in vain that M. de La Rochefoucauld 
had written philosophic reflections all his life : 
he had already anticipated his last moments in 
such a way that there was nothing" either new or 
strange in death when it came to him." 

" Madame de La Fayette truly mourned him — 
don't you think so ? You were with her a g-reat 
deal, were you not, after his death ? " x 

"I never left her. It was the most pitiable 
sight to see her in her loneliness and her misery. 
You see, their common ill-health and their seden- 
tary habits, had made them so necessary to each 
other ! It was, as it were, two souls in a single 
body. Nothing- could exceed the confidence and 
charm of their friendship ; it was incomi^ arable. 
To Madame de La Fayette his loss came as her 
death-blow ; life seems at an end for her ; for 
where, indeed, can she find another such friend, or 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 219 

such intercourse, such, sweetness and charm — such 
confidence and consideration ? " 

There was a moment's silence after Madame de 
Sevigne's eloquent outburst. The eyes of the 
three friends were lost for a moment in the twin- 
kling- flames. The duchesse and Madame de Ker- 
man exchanged meaning glances. 

" Since the duke's death her thoughts are more 
and more turned toward religion. I hear she has 
been fortunate in her choice of directors, has she 
not ? Du Guet is said to be an ideal confessor 
for the authoress of ' La Princesse de Cleves.' " 
There was just a suspicion of malice in the du- 
chesse's tones. 

" Oh, he was born to take her in hand. He 
knew just when to speak with authority, and when 
to make use of the arts of persuasion. He wrote 
to her once, you remember : ' You, who have passed 
your life in dreaming — cease to dream ! You, who 
have taken such pride unto yourself for being so 
true in all things, were very far, indeed, from the 
truth — you were only half true — falsely true. Your 
godless wisdom was in reality purely a matter of 
good taste ! ' " 

" What audacity ! Bossuet himself could not 
have put the truth more nakedly." The duchesse 
was one of those to whom truths were novelties, 
and unpleasant ones. 

"Bossuet, if I remember rightly, was with the 
Duke de La Eochefoucauld at the last, was he 
not ? " 

" Yes," responded Madame de Sevigne ; " he was 
with him ; he administered the supreme unction. 



220 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

The duke was in a beautiful state of grace. M. 
Yinet, you remember, said of him that he died 
with ' X3erfect decorum.' " 

" Speaking of dying- reminds me " — cried sud- 
denly Madame de Sevigne — " how are the duke's 
hangings getting on ? " 

"They begin, the duke writes me, to hang 
again to-morrow," answered the duchesse, with a 
certain air of disdain, the first appearance of this 
weapon of the great now coming to the grande 
dame's aid. Her husband, the Duke de Chaulnes' 
trouble with his revolutionary citizens at Eennes 
was a subject that never failed to arouse a feeling 
of angry contempt in her. It was too i^reposter- 
ous, the idea of those insolent creatures rising 
against him, their rightful duke and master ! 

The duchesse's feeling in the matter was fully 
shared by her friends. In all the court there was 
but one opinion in the matter — hanging was really 
far too good for the wretched creatures. 

" Monsieur de Chaulnes," the duchesse went on, 
with ironical contempt in her voice, " still goes on 
punishing Kennes ! " \ 

" This province and the duke's treatment of ^t 
will serve as a capital example to all others. It 
will teach those rascals," Madame de Kerman con- 
tinued, in lower tones, " to respect their gover- 
nors, and not to throw stones into their gardens ! " 

" Fancy that — the audacity of throwing stones 
into their duke's garden ! Why, did you know, 
they actually — those insolent creatures actually 
called him — called the duke — ' g)vs cochon ? ' " 

All three ladies gasped in horror at this unpar- 



THREE NOBMANBY INNS. 221 

alleled instance of audacity ; they threw up their 
hands, as they groaned over the picture, in low 
tones of finished elegance. 

" It is little wonder the duke hangs right and 
left ! The dear duke — what a model governor ! 
How I should like to liave seen him sack that street 
at Rennes, with all the ridiculous old men, and the 
women in childbirth, and the children, turned out 
IDele-mele ! And the hanging, too — why, hanging 
now seems to me a positively refreshing perform- 
ance ! " And Madame de Sevigne laughed with 
unstinted gayety as at an excellent joke. 

The picture of Rennes and the cruelty dealt its 
inhabitants was a pleasant picture, in the contem- 
plation of which these ladies evidently found 
much delectation. They were quiet for a longer 
period of time than usual ; they continued silent, 
as they looked into the fire, smiling; the flames 
there made them think of other flames as forms of 
merited punishment. 

" A curious people those Bas Bretons," finally 
ejaculated Madame de Sevigne. "I never could 
understand how Bertrand Duguesclin made them 
the best soldiers of his day in France ! " 

" You know Lower Brittany very well, do you 
not, dear friend ? " 

" Not so well as the coast. Les Rochers is in 
Upper Brittany, you know. I know the south 
better still. Ah, what a charming journey I 
once took along the Loire with my friend Bien- 
Bon, the Abbe de Coulanges. We found it the 
most enchanting country in the world — the coun- 
try of feasts and of famine ; feasts for us and fam- 



222 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

ine for the people. I remember we liad to cross 
the river ; our coach was placed on the barg-e, and 
we were rowed along- by stout peasants. Through 
the g^lass windows of the coach we looked out at 
a series of chang-ing- pictures — the views were 
charming'. We sat, of course, entirely at our 
ease, on our soft cushions. The country people, 
crowded tog-ether beloAv, were— ugh! — like pigs in 
straw." 

" Was Bien-Bon with you when you made that 
little excursion to St. Germain "i '' queried the 
duchesse. 

" Ah, that was a gay night," joyously responded 
Madame de Sevigne. " How well we amused our- 
selves on that little visit that we paid Madame 
de Maintenon — when she was only Madame Scar- 
ron." 

" Was she so handsome then as they say she 
was — at that time "? " 

" Very handsome ; she was good, too, and ami- 
able, and easy to talk to ; one talked well and 
readily with her. She was then only the gover- 
ness of the king's bastards, you know — of the 
children he had had by Madame de Montespai^.. 
That was the first step toward governing the 
king. Well, one night — the night to which you 
refer — I remember we were all supping with 
Madame de La Fayette. We had been talking 
endlessly ! Suddenly it occurred to us it would be 
a most amusing adventure to take Madame Scar- 
ron home, to the very last end of the Faubourg 
Saint Germain, far beyond where Madame de La 
Fayette lived — near Yaugirard, out into the Bois, 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 223 

ill the country. The Abbe came too. It was mid- 
night when we started. The house, Avhen at last 
we reached it, we found large and beautiful, with 
large and fine rooms and a beautiful garden ; for 
Madame Scarron, as governess of the king's chil- 
dren, had a coach and a lot of servants and 
horses. She herself dressed then modestly and 
yet magnificently, as a woman should, who spent 
her life among people of the highest rank. We 
had a merry outing, returning in high spirits, 
blessed in having no end of lanterns, and thus 
assured against robbers." 

" She and Madame de La Fayette were very 
close friends, I remember, during that time," 
mused the duchesse, " when they were such near 
neighbors." 

" Yes," Madame de Sevigne went on, as unwear- 
ied now, although it was nearly midnight, as in the 
beginning of the long evening. " Yes ; I always 
thought Madame de Maintenon's satirical little 
joke about Madame de La Fayette's bed festooned 
with gold — ' I might have fifty thousand pounds 
income, and never should I live in the style of a 
great lady ; never should I have a bed festooned 
with gold like Madame de La Fayette ' — was the 
beginning of their rupture." 

'■ All the same, Madame de La Fayette, lying on 
that bed, beneath the gold hangings, was a much 
more simple person than ever was Madame de 
Maintenon ! " 

" Your speaking of bed reminds me, dear ladies 
ours must be quite cold by this time. How we 
have chatted ! What a delightful gossip ! But 



224 THREE NOmiANDY INNS. 

we must not forget tliat our journey to-morrow is 
to be a long* one ! " 

The duchesse rose, the other two ladies rising 
instantly, observing, in spite of the intimate rela- 
tions in which they stood toward the duchesse, 
the deference due to her more exalted rank. The 
latter clapped her hands ; outside the door a 
shuffling and a low groan were heard — the groan 
came from the sleepy lackey, roused from his 
deejj slumber, as he uncoiled himself from the 
close knot into which his legs and body were knit 
in the curve of the narrow stairs. 

The ladies, a few seconds later, were wending 
their way up the steep turret steps. They were 
preceded by torches and followed by quite a long 
train of maids and lackeys. For a long hour, at 
least, the little inn resounded with the sound of 
hurrying feet, of doors closing and shutting ; with 
the echo of voices giving commands and of others 
X^urring in sleepy accents of obedience. Then 
one by one the sounds died away ; the lights went 
out in the bedchambers ; faint flickerings stole 
through the chinks of doors and windows. The 
watchman cried out the hour, and the gleam or^a 
lantern flashed here and there, illuminating the 
open court-yard. The cocks crowed shrilly into 
the night air. A halberdier turned in his sleep 
where he lay, on some straw beneath the coach- 
shed, his halberd rattling as it struck the cobbles. 
And over the whole — over the gentle slumber of 
the great ladies and the sleep of beast and man — 
there fell the peace and the stillness of the mid- 
night — of that midnight of long ago. 




CHAPTEE XXn. 

A NINETEENTH-CENTUEY BREAKFAST. 

The very next morning", after 
tlie rain, and the vision I 
had had of Madame de Se- 
vigne, conjured njD by my 
surrounding's and the read- 
ing- of her letters. Monsieur 
Paul paid us an early call. He came to beg the 
loan of our sitting-room, he said. He had had a 
despatch from a coaching'-party from Trouville ; 
they were to arrive for breakfast. The whip and 
owner of the coach was a great friend of his, he 
proffered by way of explanation — a certain count 
who had a genius for friendship — one Avho also had 
an artist's talent for admiring' the beautiful. He 
was among those who were in a state of perpetual 
adoration before the inn's perfections. He made 
yearly pilgrimages from his chateau above Kouen 
to eat a noon breakfast in the Chambre des Mar- 
mousets. Now, a breakfast served elsewhere than 
in this chamber would be, from his point of view, 
to have journeyed to a shrine to find the niche 
empty. The gift that was begged of us, therefore, 
was the loan for a few hours of the famous little 
room. 

In less than a half-hour we were watching the 



226 THREE NOBMANDT INNS. 

entrance of tlie coacli by the side of Madame Le 
Mois. We were all three seated on the green 
bench. 

Faintly at first, and presently gaining in dis- 
tinctness, came the fall of horses' hoofs and the 
rumble of wheels along the highway. A little 
cavalcade was soon passing beneath the archway, 
rirst there dashed in two horsemen, who had 
sprung to the ground almost as soon as their 
steeds' hoofs struck the paved court-yard. Then 
there swept by a jaunty dog-cart, driven by a man- 
nish figure radiantly robed in white. Swiftly fol- 
lowing came the dash and jingle of four coach- 
horses, bathed in sweat, rolling the vehicle into 
the court as if its weight were a thing of air. All 
save one among the gay party seated on the high 
seats, were too busy with themselves and their 
chatter, to take; heed of their surroundings. A 
lady beneath her deep parasol was busily en- 
gaged in a gay traffic of talk with the groups of 
men peopling the back seats of the coach. One 
of the men, however, was craning his neck beyond 
the heads of his companions ; he was running his 
eye rax)idly up and down the long inn facade. 
Finally his glance rested on us ; and then, with a 
rush, a deep red mounted the man's cheel?:, as he 
tore off his derby to wave it, as if in a triumph of 
discovery. Kenard had been true to his promise. 
He had come to see his friends and to test the 
famous Sauterne. He flung himself down from 
his lofty perch to take his seat, entirely as a mat- 
ter of course, beside us on the green bench. 

" What luck, hey ? — greatest luck in the world, 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 227 

finding you in, like this. I've been in no end of a 
tremble, fearing- you'd gone to Caen, or Falaise, or 
somewhere, and that I shouldn't see you after all. 
Well, how are you ? How goes it ? What do you 
think of old Dives and Monsieur Paul, and the 
rest of it ? I see you're settled ; you took the 
palace chamber. Trust American women — they 
know the best, and get it." 

" But these people, who are they, and how did 
you — ■? " We were unfeignedly glad to see him, 
but curiosit}^ is a passion not to be trifled w4th — 
after a month in the provinces. 

" Oh — the De Troisacs ? Old friends of mine 
— known them years. Jolly lot. Charming fel- 
low, De Troisac — only good Frenchman I've ever 
known. They're just off their yacht ; saw th^m 
all yesterday at the Trouville Casino. Said they 
were running down here for breakfast to - day, 
asked me, and I came, of course." He laughed as 
he added : " I said I should come, you remember, 
to get some of that Sauterne. A man will go any 
distance for a good bottle of wine, you know." 

Meanwhile, in the court-yard, the party on the 
coach, by means of ladders and the helping of the 
grooms, w^ere scrambling down from their seats. 
Renard's friend, the Comte de Troisac, was eas- 
ily picked out from the group of men. He was 
the elder of the party — stoutish, with frank eyes 
and a smiling mouth ; he was bustling about from 
the gaunt grooms to the ladder, and from ladder 
to the coach-seat, giving his commands right and 
left, and executing most of them himself. A tall, 
slim woman, with drooping eyelids, and an air of 



228 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

extreme elegance and of cultivated fatigue, was 
also easily recognizable as the countess. It took 
two grooms, two of the gentlemen guests, and her 
husband to assist her to the ground. Her passage 
down the steps of the ladder had been long enough, 
however, to enable her to display a series of pretty 
poses, each one more effective than the others. 
When one has an instep of ideal elevation, what 
is the use of being born a Frenchwoman, unless 
one knows how to make use of opportunity ? 

From the dog-cart, that had rattled in across 
the cobbles with a dash and a sjjurt, there came 
quite a different accent and pose. The whitish 
personage, whom we had mistakenly supposed to 
be a man, wore petticoats ; the male attire only 
held as far as the waist of the lady. The stiff 
white shirt-front, the knotted tie — a faultless male 
knot — the loose driving- jacket, with its sprig of 
white geranium, and the round straw-hat worn in 
mannish fashion, close to the level brows, was a 
costume that would have deceived either sex. 
Below the jacket flowed the straight lines of a 
straight skirt, that no further conjectures should 
be rendered necessary. This lady had a high- 
bred air of singular distinction, accentuated by a 
tremendously knowing look. She was at once 
elegant and rakish ; the gamin in her was obvi- 
ously the touch of caviare to season the woman of 
fashion. The mixture made an extraordinarily at- 
tractive ensemble. As she jumped to the ground, 
throwing her reins to a groom, her j,ump was a 
master-stroke ; it landed her squarely on her feet ; 
even as she struck the ground her hands were 



THREE NOBMAJS^DY INNS. 229 

thrust deeply into her pockets. The man seated 
beside her, who now leaped out after her, seemed 
timid and awkward by contrast with her alert pre- 
cision. This coui^le moved at once toward the 
bench on which madame was seated. With the 
coming" in of the coach and the cart she had 
risen, waddling forward to meet the party. Mon- 
sieur Paul was at the coach-wheels before the 
grooms had shot themselves down; De Troisac, 
with eager friendliness, stretched forth a hand 
from the top of his seat, exclaiming", with g"ay 
heartiness, 

" Ah, mon bon — comment ca va ? " 

The mere was as eagerly greeted. Even the 
countess dismissed her indifference for the mo- 
ment, as she held out her hand to Madame Le 
Mois. 

" Dear Madame Le Mois — and it goes well with 
you ? And the gout and the rheumatism, they 
have ceased to torment you ? Quelle honne nou- 
velle ! And here are the dear old cocks and the 
wounded bantam. The cockatoos — ah, there they 
are, still swinging" in the air ! Comme c'est joli — et 
frails — et que Qa sent bon ! " 

Madame and Monsieur Paul were equally effu- 
sive in their inquiries and exclamations — it was 
clearly a meeting of old friends. Madame Le 
Mois' face was meanwhile a study. The huge 
surface was glistening with pleasure ; she was un- 
feignedly glad to see these Parisians : — but there 
was no elation at this meeting on such easy terms 
with greatness. Her shrewdness was as alive as 
ever; she was about to make money out of the 



230 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

visit — they were to have of her best, but they 
must i^ay for it. Between her rapid fire of ques- 
tionings as to the countess's health and the his- 
tory of her travels, there was as rapid a shower 
of commands, sometimes shouted out, above all 
the hubbub, to the cooks standing- gaping in the 
kitchen doorway, or whispered hoarsely to Ernes- 
tine and Marianne, who were flying about like 
wild pigeons, a little drunk with the novelty of 
this first breakfast of the season. 

" Allans, mon enfant — cours — cours — get thy linen, 
my child, and the silver candelabres. It is to be 
laid in the Marmousets, thou knowest. Paul will 
come presently. And the salads, pluck them and 
bring them in to me — cours — cows." 

The great world was all very well, and it was 
well to be on friendly, even intimate terms, with it ; 
but, Dieu ! one's own bread is of importance too ! 
And the countess, for all her delicacy, was a honne 
fourchette. 

The countess and her friend, after a moment 
of standing in the court-yard, of patting the peli- 
can, of trying their blandishments on the fla- 
mingo, of catching up the bantam, and filling thip 
air with their purring, and caressing, and in- 
cessant chatter, j)assed beneath the low door to 
the inner sanctum of madame. The two ladies 
were clearly bent on a few moments of unre- 
served gossijo and that repairing of the toilet 
which is a religious act to women of fashion the 
world over. 

In the court-yard the scene was still a brilliant 
one. The gayly painted coach was now deserted. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 231 

It stood, a chariot of state, as it were, awaiting" roy- 
alty ; its yellow sides gleamed like topaz in the 
sun. The grooms were unharnessing the leaders, 
that were still bathed in the white of their sweat. 
The count's dove-colored flannels were a soft mass 
against the snow of the chef's apron and cap ; the 
two were in deep consultation at the kitchen door. 
Monsieur Paul was showing, with all the absorp- 
tion of the artist, his latest Jumieges carvings 
to the taller, more awkward of the gentlemen, to 
the one driven in by the mannish beauty. 

The cockatoos had not ceased shrieking from 
the very beginning of the hubbub ; nor had the 
squirrels stopped running along the bars of their 
cage, a-flutter with excitement. The peacocks 
trailed their trains between the coach-wheels, an- 
nouncing, squawkingly, their delight at the advent 
of a larger audience. Above the cries of the fowls 
and the shrieks of the cocks, the chatter of human 
tongues, the subdued murmur of the ladies' voices 
coming through the open lattice, and the stamp of 
horses' hoofs, there swept above it all the light 
June breeze, rustling in the vines, shaking the 
thick branches against the wooden facades. 

The two ladies soon made their appearance in 
the sunlit court-yard. The murmur of their talk 
and their laughter reached us, along with the frou- 
frou of their silken petticoats. 

" You were not bored, cliere enfant, driving 
Monsieur d'Agreste all that long distance % " 

The coimtess was smiling tenderly into her 
comioanion's face. She had stopped her to read- 
just the geranium sprig that was drooping in her 



232 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

friend's cover-coat. The smile was the smile of a 
sympathizing ang-el, but what a touch of hidden 
malice there was in the notes of her caressing 
voice ! As she repinned the boutonniere, she gave 
the dancing eyes, that were brimming with the 
mirth of the coming retort, the searching inquest 
of her glance. 

"Bored! Dleu, que non / " The black little 
beauty threw back her throat, laughing, as she 
rolled her great eyes. " Bored — with all the tricks 
I was playing 1 Fernande ! pity me, there was 
such a little time, and so much to do ! " 

" So little time — only fourteen kilos ! " The 
countess compressed her lips ; they were smiling 
no longer. 

" Ah, but you see, I had so much to combat. 
You had a whole season, last summer, in which to 
play your game, your solemn game." Here the 
gay young widow rippled forth a pearly scale of 
treble laughter. " And I have had only a week, 
thus far ! " 

" Yes, but what time you make ! " 

And this time both ladies laughed, althougjh, 
still, only one laughed well. \ 

" Ah ! those women — how they love eacli other," 
commented Kenard, as he sat on the bench, 
swinging his legs, with his eyes following the 
two vanishing figures. " Only women who are 
intimate — Parisian intimates — can cut to the bone 
like that, with a surgeon's dexterity." 

He explained then that the handsome brunette 
was a widow, a certain Baronne d'Autun, noted for 
her hunting and her conquests ; the last on the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 233 

latter list was Monsieur d'x4-greste, a former ad- 
mirer of the countess ; lie was somewhat famous 
as a scientist and socialist, so g-ood a socialist 
as to refuse to wear his title of duke. The other 
two gentlemen of the party, who had joined them 
now, the two horsemen, were the Comtes de Mirant 
and de Fonbriant. These latter were two typical 
young- swells of the Jockey Club model ; their 
vacant, well-bred faces wore the correct degree of 
fashionable pallor, and their manners appeared 
to be also as i)ei'fect as their glances were inso- 
lent. 

Into these vacant faces the languid countess 
was breathing the inspiration of her smile. Enig- 
matic as was the latter, it was as simple as an in- 
fant's comiDared to the occult character of her 
glance. A wealth of complexities lay enfolded in 
the deep eyes, rimmed with their mystic darkened 
circlet — that circle in which the Parisienne frames 
her experience, and through which she pleads to 
have it enlarged ! 

A Frenchwoman and cosmetics ! Is there any 
other combination on this round earth more sug- 
gestive of the comedy of high life, of its elegance 
and of its perfidy, of its finish and of its empti- 
ness ? 

The men of the party wore costumes perilously 
suggestive of Opera Bouffe models. Their fingers 
were richly begemmed ; their watch-chains were 
laden with seals and charms. Any one of the cos- 
tumes was such as might have been chosen by a 
tenor in which to warble eifectively to a souhrette 
on the boards of a provincial theatre ; and it was 



234 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

worn by these fops of tlie Jockey Club witli tlie 
air of its being the last word in nautical fashions. 
Better than their costumes were their voices ; for 
what speech from human lips iDearls itself off with 
such crispness and finish as the delicate French 
idiom from a Parisian tongue ? 

I never quite knew how it came about that we 
were added to this gay jjarty of breakfasters. 
We found ourselves, however, after a high skir- 
mish of preliminary presentations, among the 
number to take our places at the table. 

In the Chambre des Marmousets, Monsieur 
Paul, we found, had set the feast with the taste of 
an artist and the science of an archaeologist. The 
table itself was long and narrow, a genuine fif- 
teenth-century table. Down the centre ran a strip 
of antique altar-lace ; the sides were left bare, that 
the lustre of the dark wood might be seen. In the 
centre was a deep old Caen bowl, with grapes and 
fuchsias to make a mound of soft color. A pair 
of seventeenth - century candelabres twisted and 
coiled their silver branches about their rich re- 
pousse columns ; here and there on the yellow strip 
of lace were laid bunches of June roses, those onl}; 
of the rarer and older varieties having been chosen, 
and each was tied with a Louis XV. love-knot. 
Monsieur Paul was himself an omniscient figure 
at the feast ; he was by turns ofliciating as butler, 
carving, or serving from the side-tables ; or he 
was crossing the court-yard with his careful, cat- 
like tread, a bottle under each arm. He was also 
constantly appealed to by Monsieur d'Agreste or 
the count, to settle a dispute about the age of the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 235 

china, or the original home of the various okl 
chests scattered about the room. 

" Paul, your stained glass shows up well in this 
light," the count called out, wiping his mustache 
over his soup-plate. 

" Yes," answered Monsieur Paul, as he went on 
serving the sherry, pausing for a moment at the 
count's glass. " They always look well in full 
sunlight. It was a piece of pure luck, getting 
them. One can always count on getting hold of 
tapestries and carvings, but old glass is as rare 
as " 

" A pretty woman," interpolated the gay young 
widow, with the air of a connoisseur." 

" Outside of Paris — you should have added," 
gallantly contributed the count. Everyone went 
on eating after the light laughter had died away. 

The countess had not assisted at this brief con- 
versation ; she was devoting- her attention to re- 
ceiving the devotion of the two young counts ; 
one was on either side of her, and both gave 
every outward and visible sign of wearing her 
chains, and of wearing them with insistance. The 
real contest between them appeared to be, not so 
much which should make the conquest of the lan- 
guid countess, as which should outflank the other 
in his compromising demeanor. The countess, 
beneath her drooping lids, watched them with the 
indulgent indolence of a lioness, too luxuriously 
lazy to spring. 

The countess, clearly, was not made for sun- 
light. In the courtyard her face had seemed 
chiefly remarkable as a triumph of cosmetic treat- 



236 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

ment ; here, under this rich glow, the purity and 
delicacy of the features easily placed her among- 
the beauties of the Parisian world. Her eyes, 
now that the languor of the lids was disappearing 
with the advent of the wines, were magnificent; 
her use of them was an open avowal of her own 
knowledge of their splendor. The young widow 
across the table was also using her eyes, but in a 
very different fashion. She had now taken off her 
straw hat ; the curly crop of a brown mane gave the 
brilliant face an added accent of vigor. The ckien 
de race was the dominant note now in the muscu- 
lar, supple body, the keen-edged nostrils, and the 
intent gaze of the liquid eyes. These latter were 
fixed with the fixity of a savage on Charm. She 
was giving, in a sweet sibilant murmur, the man 
seated next her — Monsieur d'Agreste, the man who 
refused to bear his title— her views of the girl. 

" Those Americans, the Americans of the best 
type, are a race apart, I tell you ; we have nothing 
like them ; we condemn them because we don't un- 
derstand them. They understand us — they read 
us " 

"Oh, they read our books — the worst of them." 

" Yes, but they read the best too ; and the worst 
don't seem to hurt them. I'll warrant that Mees 
Gay — ^that is her name, is it not % — has read Zola, 
for instance ; and yet, see how simple and inno- 
cent — yes — innocent, she looks." 

" Yes, the innocence of experience — which knows 
how to hide," said Monsieur d'Agreste, with a slight 
shrug. 

" Mees Gay ! " the countess cried out across the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 237 

table, suddenly waking from lier somnolence ; she 
had overheard the baroness in spite of the low 
tone in which the dialogue had been carried on ; 
her voice was so mellifluously sweet, one instinct- 
ively scented a touch of hidden poison in it — " Mees 
Gaj', there is a question being put at this side of 
the table you alone can answer. Pray pardon tlie 
impertinence of a personal question — but we hear 
that American young ladies read Zola; is it 
true % " 

" I am afraid that we do read him," was Charm's 
frank answer. " I have read him — but my reading 
is all in the past tense now." 

" Ah — you found him too highly seasoned ? " 
one of the young counts asked, eagerly, with his 
nose in the air, as if scenting an indiscretion. 

" No, I did not go far enough to get a taste of 
his horrors ; I stopped at his first period." 

"And what do you call his first period, dear 
mademoiselle ? " The countess's voice was still 
freighted with honey. Her husband coughed and 
gave her a warning glance, and Renard was mov- 
ing uneasily in his chair. 

" Oh," Charm answered lightly, " his best pe- 
riod — when he didn't sell." 

Everyone laughed. The little widow cried be- 
neath her breath : 

" Elle a de V esprit, celle-la " 

" Elle en a de trop," retorted the countess. 

" Did you ever read Zola's ' Quatre Saisons ? ' " 
Eenard asked, turning to the count, at the other 
end of the table. 

No, the count had not read it— but he could 



238 THREE NORMANDY INN8.^ 

read tlie story of a beautiful nature when lie en- 
countered one, and presently lie allowed Charm to 
see how absorbing he found its perusal. 

" Ah, hien — et tout de meme — Zola, yes, he writes 
terrible books; but he is a good man — a model 
husband and father," continued Monsieur d'Ag-- 
reste, addressing the table. 

" And Daudet — he adores his wife and children," 
added the count, as if with a determination to find 
only goodness in the world. 

" I wonder how posterity will treat them ? They'll 
j udge their lives by their books, I presume." 

" Yes, as we judge Rabelais or Voltaire " 

" Or the English Shakespeare by his ' Hamlet.'" 

" Ah ! what would not Voltaire have done with 
Hamlet ! " The countess was beginning to wake 
again. 

" And Moliere 1 What of Ms ' Misanthrope ? ' 
There is a finished, a human, a possible Hamlet ! 
a Hamlet with flesh and blood," cried out the 
younger count on her right. " Even Mounet- 
Sully could do nothing with the English Hamlet." 

" Ah, well, Mounet-Sully did all that was possible 
with the part. He made Hamlet at least a lover! " 

" Ah, love ! as if, even on the stage, one be- 
lieved in that absurdity any longer!" was the 
countess's malicious comment. 

" Then, if you have ceased to believe in love, 
why did you go so religiously to Monsieur Caro's 
lectures ? " cried the baroness. 

" Oh, that dear Caro 1 He treated the passions 
so delicately, he handled them as if they were 
curiosities. One went to hear his lecture on Love 



THREE N0B2IANDY INNS. 239 

as one might g"o to hear a treatise on the pecu- 
liarities of an extinct species," was the countess's 
quiet rejoinder. 

" One should believe in love, if only to prove 
one's unbelief in it," murmured the young count 
on her left. 

" Ah, my dear comte, love, nowadays, like nat- 
ure, should only be used for decoration, as a bit 
of stage setting', or as stage scenery." 

"A moonlight night can be made endurable, 
sometimes," whispered the count. 

" A clair de lune that ends in lune de miel, that is 
the true use to which to put the charms of Diana." 
It was Monsieur d'Agreste's turn now to murmur 
in the baroness's ear. 

" Oh, honey, it becomes so cloying in time," in- 
terpolated the countess, who had overheard ; she 
overheard everything. She gave a wearied glance 
at her husband, who was still talking vigorously 
to Charm and Renard. She went on softly : " It's 
like trying to do good. All goodness, even one's 
own, bores one in the end. At Basniege, for 
example, lovely as it is, ideally feudal, and with 
all its towers as erect as you please, I find this 
modern virtue, this craze for charity, as tiresome 
as all the rest of it. Once you've seen that all 
the old women have woollen stockings, and that 
each cottage has fagots enough for the winter, 
and your role of benefactress is at an end. In 
Paris, at least, charity is sometimes picturesque ; 
poverty there is tainted with vice. If one be- 
lieved in anything, it might be worth while to 
begin a mission : but as it is ■" 



240 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

" The gospel of life, according to you, dear 
comtesse, is that in modern life there is no real 
excitement except in studying the very best way 
to be rid of it," cried out Renard, from the bottom 
of the table. 

" True ; but suicide is such a coarse weapon," 
the lady answered, quite seriously ; "so vulgar 
now, since the common people have begun to use 
it. Besides, it puts your adversary, the world, in 
possession of your secret of discontent. No, no. 
Suicide, the invention of the nineteenth century, 
goes out with it. The only refined form of sui- 
cide is to bore one's self to death," and she smiled 
sweetly into the young man's eyes nearest her. 

" Ah, comtesse, you should not have parted so 
early in life with all your illusions," was Mon- 
sieur d'Agreste's protest across the table. 

" And, Monsieur dAgreste, it isn't given to us 
all to go to the ends of the earth, as you do, in 
search of new ones ! This friction of living doesn't 
wear on you as it does on the rest of us." 

" Ah, the ends of the earth, they are very much 
like the middle and the beginning of things. 
Man is not so very different, wherever you find 
him. The only real difference lies in the manner 
of ai:)proachiug him. The scientist, for example, 
finds him eternally fresh, novel, inspiring ; he is a 
mine only as yet half-worked." Monsieur d'Ag- 
reste was beginning to wake up ; his eyes, hither- 
to, alone had been alive ; his hands had been busy, 
crunching his bread ; but his tongue had been 
silent. 

" Ah — h science ! Science is only another 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 2il 

anaesthetic — it merely lielps to kill time. It is a 
hobby, like any other," was the countess's re- 
joinder. 

" Perhaps," courteously returned Monsieur cl'Ag-- 
reste, with perfect sweetness of temper. "But at 
least, it is a hobby that kills no one else. And 
if of a hobby you can make a principle " 

" A principle ? " The countess contracted her 
brows, as if she had heard a word that did not 
please her. 

" Yes, dear lady ; the wise man lays out his life 
as a g-ardener does a garden, on the principle of 
selection, of order, and with a view to the succes- 
sion of the seasons. You all bemoan the dulness 
of life ; you, in Paris, the torpor of ennui stifles 
you, you cry. On the contrary, I would wish the 
days were weeks, and the weeks months. And 
why ? Simply because I have discovered the 
philosopher's stone. I have grasped the secret of 
my era. The comedy of rank is played out ; the 
life of the trifler is at an end ; all that went out 
with the Bourbons. Individualism is the new 
order. To-day a man exists simply by virtue of 
his own effort — he stands on his own feet. It is 
the era of the republican, of the individual — sci- 
ence is the true republic. For us who are dis- 
placed from the elevation our rank gave us, work 
is the watchword, and it is the only battle-cry left 
us now. He only is strong, and therefore happy, 
who perceives this truth, and who marches in 
step with the modern movement." 

The serious turn given to the conversation had 
silenced all save the baroness. She had listened 



242 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

even more intently than the others to her friend's 
eloquence, nodding her head assentingly to all 
that he said. His philosophic reflections pro- 
duced as much effect on her vivacious excitability 
as they might on a restless Skye-terrier. 

"Yes, yes — he's entirely right, is Monsieur 
d'Agreste ; he has got to the bottom of things. 
One must keep in step with modernity — one must 
he fin desiede. Comtesse, you should hunt; there 
is nothing like a fox or a boar to make life worth 
living. It's better, infinitely better, than a pur- 
suit of hearts ; a boar's more troublesome than a 
man." 

" Unless you marry him," the countess inter- 
rupted, ending with a thrush-like laugh. When 
she laughed she seemed to have a bird in her 
throat. 

" Oh, a man's heart, it's like the flag of a de- 
fenceless country — anyone may capture it." 

The countess smiled with ineffable grace into 
the vacant, amorous-eyed faces on either side of 
her, rising as she smiled. We had reached des- 
sert now ; the coffee was being handed round. 
Everyone rose ; but the countess made no move 
to pass out from the room. Both she and the bar- 
oness took from their pockets dainty cigarette- 
cases. 

" Vous 2:>ermettez ? " asked the baroness, leaning 
over coquettishly to Monsieur d'Agreste's cigar. 
She accompanied her action with a charming 
glance, one in which all the woman in her was 
uppermost, and one which made Monsieur 
d'Agreste's pale cheeks flush like a boy's. He 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 243 

was a pliilosoplier and a scientist ; but all his sci- 
ence and philosophy had not saved him from the 
barbed shafts of a certain mischievous little g-od. 
He, also, v^^as visibly hugging his chains. 

The party had settled themselves in the low 
divans and in the Henri IV. arm-chairs ; a few 
here and there remained, still g-rouped about the 
table, with the freedom of pose and in the comfort 
of attitude smoking- and coffee bring with them. 

It was destined, however, that the hour was to 
be a short one. One of the g-rooms obsequiously 
knocked at the door ; he whispered in the count's 
ear, who advanced quickly toward him, the news 
that the coach was waiting ; one of the leaders 

" Desolated, my dear ladies — but my man tells 
me the coach is in readiness, and I have an imper- 
tinent leader who refuses to stand, when he is 
waiting, on anything more solid than his hind 
legs. Fernande, my dear, we must be on the 
move. Desolated, dear ladies — desolated — but it's 
only au revoir. We must arrange a meeting later, 
in Paris " 

The scene in the court-yard was once again gay 
with life and bristling with color. The coach and 
the dog-cart shone resplendent in the slanting 
sun's rays. In the brighter sunlight, the added 
glow in the eyes and the cheeks of the brilliantly 
costumed group, made both men and women seem 
younger and fresher than when they had ap- 
peared, two hours since. All were in high good 
humor— the wines and the talk had warmed the 
quick French blood. There was a merry scramble 
for the top coach-seats ; the two young counts ex- 



244 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

chang'ed their seat in their saddles for the piivi- 
le.o-e of holding-, one the countess's vinaigrette, and 
the other, her long-handled parasol. Eenard was 
beside his friend De Troisac ; the horn rang- out, 
the horses started as if stung, dashing at their 
bits, and in another moment the great coach was 
being- whirled beneath the archway. 

"Au revoir — au revoir ! " was cried down to us 
from the throne - like elevation. There was a 
pretty waving of hands — for even the countess's dis- 
like melted into sweetness as she bade us farewell. 
There were answering cries from the shrieking 
cockatoos, from the peacocks who trailed their 
tails sadly in the dust, from the cooks and the 
peasant serving-women who had assembled to bid 
the distinguished guests adieu. There was also a 
sweeping bow from Monsieur Paul, and a grunt 
of contented dismissal from Madame Le Mois. 

A moment after the departure of the coach the 
court-yard was as still as a convent cloister. 

It was still enough to hear the click of ma- 
dame's fingers, as she tapped her snuff-box. 

" The count doesn't see any better than he did 
— toujours myo2)e, lid" the old woman murmured iq 
her son, with a pregnant wink, as she took her 
snuff. 

■'' Cest sa faQon de tout voir, au contraire, ma 
mere," significantly returned Monsieur Paul, with 
his knowing smile. 

The mother's shrug answered the smile, as both 
mother and son walked in different directions — 
across the sunlit court. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY ALONG 
THE COAST. 

CAEN, BAYEUX, ST. LO, COUTANCES. 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 



A NIGHT IN A CAEN AITIC. 




I HAVE always found the act 
of going- away contagious. 
Who really enjoj^s being 
left behind, to mope in a 
corner of the world others 
have abandoned ? The 
gay company atoj) of the 
coach, as they were whirled 
beneath the old archway, 
had left discontent behind; 
the miisic of the horn, like 
that lolayed by the Pied 
Piper, had the magic of 
making the feet ache to follow after. 

Monsieur Paul was so used to see his world go 
and come — to greeting it with civility, and to as- 
sist at its departure with smiling indifference — that 
the announcement of our own intention to desert 
the inn within a daj^ or so, was received with un- 
flattering impassivity. We had decided to take 
a flight along the coast — the month and the 
weather were at their best as aids to such adven- 
ture. We hoped to see the Fete-Dieu at Caen. 
AVhy not push on to Coutances, where the Fete 
was still celebrated with a mediaeval splendor ? 



248 THREE NOBMANDY INNS. 

From thence to the great Mont, the Mont St. Mi- 
chel, it was but the distance of a good steed's gal- 
loping — we could cover the stretch of country be- 
tween in a day's driving, and catch, who knows ? 
— perhaps the June pilgrims climbing the Mont. 

" Ah, mesdames ! there are duller things in the 
world to endure than a glimpse of the Normandy 
coast and the scent of June roses ! Idylliquement 
belle, la cote a ce moment -ci ! " 

This was all the regret that seasoned Monsieur 
Paul's otherwise gracious and most graceful of 
farewells. Why cannot we all attain to an innkeep- 
er's altitude, as a point of view from which to look 
out upon the Avorld % Why not emulate his calm, 
when people who have done with us turn their 
backs and stalk away ? Why not, like him, count 
the pennies as not all the payment received when 
a pleasure has come which cannot be footed up in 
the bill ? 

The entire company of the inn household was 
assembled to see us start. Not a white mouse but 
was on duty. The cockatoos performed the most 
perilous of their trapeze accomplishments as a last 
tribute ; the doves cooed mournfully ; the mon\ 
keys ran like frenzied siairits along their gratings 
to see the very last of us. Madame Le Mois consid- 
erately carried the bantam to the archway, that 
the lost joy of strutting might be replaced by the 
IDride of i^referment above its fellows. 

" Adieu, mesdames." 

" Au revoir — you will return — tout le monde re- 
vient — Guillaume le Conquerant, like Caesar, con- 
quers once to hold forever — remember ■" 



THBEE NORMANDY INNS. 249 

From Monsieur Paul, in quieter, richer tones, 
came his true farewell, the one we had looked for : 

" The evening's in the Marmousets will seem 
lonely when it rains — you must give us the hope 
of a quick return. Hope is the food of those who 
remain behind, as we Normans say ! " 

The archway darkened the sod for an instant ; 
the next we had passed out into the broad high- 
way. Jean, in his blouse, with Suzette beside 
him, both jolting along in the lumbering char-a- 
banc, stared out at us with a vacant-eyed curiosity. 
We were only two travellers like themselves, along 
a dusty roadway, on our way to Caen ; we were of 
no particular importance in the landscape, we and 
our rickety little phaeton. Yet only a moment 
before, in the inn court-j^ard, we had felt ourselves 
to be the pivotal centre of a world wholly peopled 
with friends ! This is what comes to all men who 
live under the modern curse — the double curse of 
restlessness and that itching for novelty, which 
made the old Greek longing for the unknown 
deity — which is also the only honest prayer of so 
xiVMij fin de siecle souls! 

Besides the dust, there were other things abroad 
on the high-road. AVhat a lot of June had got 
into the air ! The meadows and the orchards were 
exuding perfumes ; the hedge-rows were so many 
yards of roses and wild grape-vines in blossom. 
The sea-smells, aromatic, pungent, floated inland 
to be married, in hot haste, to a perfect harem of 
clover and locust scents. The charm of the coast 
was enriched by the homely, familiar scenes of 
farm-house life. All the country between Dives 



250 THREE NOBMANDY INNS. 

and Caen seemed one vast farm, beautifully tilled, 
with its meadow-lands dipping- seaward. For 
several miles, perhaps, the agricultural note alone 
would be the dominant one, with the fields full of 
the old, the eternal surprise — the dawn of young 
summer rising over them. Down the sides of 
the low hills, the polychrome grain waved be- 
neath the touch of the breeze like a moving sea. 
Many and vast were the flat-lands ; they were 
wide vistas of color : there were fields that were 
scarlet with the pomp of poppies, others tinged 
to the yellow of a Celestial by the feathery mus- 
tard ; and still others blue as a sapphire's heart 
from the dye of millions of bluets. A dozen small 
rivers — or perhaps it was only one — coiled and 
twisted like a cobra in sinuous action, in and out 
among the pasture and sea-meadows. 

As we passed the low, bushy banks, we heard 
the babel of the washerwomen's voices as they 
gossiped and beat their clothes on the stones. A 
fisherman or two gave one a hint that idling was 
understood here, as elsewhere, as being a fine art 
for those who possess the talent of never being 
pressed for time. A peasant had brought hi^\ 
horse to the bank ; the river, to both peasant and 
Percheron, was evidently considered as a p'ersonal 
possession — as are all rivers to those who live 
near them. There Avas a naturalness in all the life 
abroad in the fields that gave this Normandy high- 
road an incomparable charm. An Arcadian calm, 
a certain jjatriarchal simplicity reigned beneath the 
trees. Children trudged to the river bank with 
pails and pitchers to be filled ; women, with rakes 



THREE WOBMANBY INJS'S. 251 

and scythes in hand, crept down from the upper 
iiekls to season their mid-day meal with the cooling- 
Avhiff of the river and sea air. Children tug-ged at 
their skirts. In two feet of human life, with ker- 
chief tied under chin, the small hands carrying- 
a huge bunch of cornflowers, how much of great 
gravity there may be ! One such rustic sketch 
of the future peasant was seriously carrying its 
bouquet to another small edition seated in a grove 
of poppies ; it might have been a votive offering. 
Both the children seated themselves, a very ear- 
nest conversation ensuing. On the hill-top, near 
by, the father and mother were also conversing, 
as they bent over their scythes. Another i3icture 
was wheeling itself along the river bank ; it was a 
farmer behind a huge load of green grass ; atop 
of the grasses two moon-faced children had laps 
and hands crowded with field flowers. Behind 
them the mother walked, with a rake slung over 
her shoulder, her short skirts and scant draperies 
giving to her step a noble freedom. The brush 
of Vollon or of Breton would have seized upon 
her to embody the type of one of their rustic 
beauties, that type whose mingled fierceness and 
grace make their peasants the rude goddesses of 
the plough. 

Even a rustic river wearies at last of wandering, 
as an occupation. Miles back we had left the 
sea; even the hills had stopped a full hour ago, 
as if they had no taste for the rivalry of cathedral 
spires. Behold the river now, coursing as se- 
dately as the high-road, between two intermina- 
ble lines of poplars. Far as the eye could reach 



252 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

stretched a wide, great plain. It was flat as an 
old woman's joalm; it was also as fertile as the 
city sitting in the midst of its luxuriance has been 
rich in history. 

" Cej^ttys est tres beau, et Caen la plus jolie ville, la 
phis avenante, la j^lus gate, la mieux siticee, les plus 
belles rues, les plus beaux bdtiments, les plus belles 
eglises " 

There was no doubt, Charm added, as she re- 
peated the ladj^'s verdict, of the opinion Madame 
de Sevigne had formed of the town. As we drove, 
some two hundred years later, through the Caen 
streets, the charm we found had been, perpet- 
uated, but alas ! not all of the beauty. At first we 
were entirely certain that Caen had retained its 
old loveliness ; the outskirts were tricked out with 
the bloom of gardens and with old houses brave 
in their armor of vines. The meadows and t]ie 
great trees of the plain were partly to blame for 
this illusion ; they yielded their place grudgingly 
to the cobble-stoned streets and the height of 
dormer windows. 

To come back to the world, even to a provincial 
world, after having lived for a time in a corner, is ^ 
certain to evoke a pleasurable feeling of elation. 
The streets of Caen were by no means the liveliest 
we had driven into ; nor did the inhabitants, as at 
Villerville, turn out en masse to welcome us. The 
streets, to be quite truthful, were as sedately quiet 
as any thoroughfares could well be, and proudly 
call themselves boulevards. The stony-faced gray 
houses presented a singularly chill front, consid- 
ering their nationality. But neither the pallor of 



THREE NOBMANBY INNS. 253 

tlie streets nor their aspect of provincial calm had 
power to dampen the sense of our having returned 
to the world of cities. A girl issuing' from a door- 
way with a netted veil drawn tig-htly over her rosy 
cheeks, and the curve of a Parisian bodice, imme- 
diately invested Caen with a metropolitan impor- 
tance. 

The most courteous of innkeepers was bending 
over our carriage-door. He was desolated, but 
his inn was already full ; it was crowded to reple- 
tion with people ; surely these ladies knew it was 
the week of the races ? Caen was as crowded as 
the inn ; at night many made of the open street 
their bed ; his own court-yard was as filled with 
men as with farm-wagons. It was altogether 
hopeless as a situation ; as a welcome into a 
strange city, I have experienced none more arctic. 
I had, however, forgotten that I was travelling 
with a conqueror; that when Charm smiled she 
did as she pleased with her world. The innkeeper 
was only a man ; and since Adam, when has any 
member of that sex been known to say " No " to a 
pretty woman ? This French Adam, when Charm 
parted her lips, showing the snow of her teeth, 
found himself suddenly, miraculously, endowed 
with a fragment of memory. Tiens, he had for- 
gotten ! that very morning a corner of the attic — 
un hout du toit — had been vacated. If these ladies 
did not mind mounting to a grenier — an attic, com- 
fortable, although still only an attic ! 

The one dormer window was on a level with the 
roof-tops. We had a whole company of " belles 
voisines," a trick of neighborliness in windows the 



254 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

quick French wit, years ago, was swift to name. 
These "neighbors " were of every order and pat- 
tern. All the world and his mother-in-law were 
gone to the races ; — and yet every window was 
playing a different scene in the comedy of this life 
in the sky. Who does not know — and love — a 
French window, the higher up in the world of air 
the better "? There are certain to be plants, rows 
of them in pots, along the wide sill ; one can 
count on a bullfinch or a parrot, as one can on the 
bebes that apx)ear to be born on purpose to i^oke 
their fingers in the cages ; there is certain also 
to be another cage hanging above the flowers — 
one filled with a fresh lettuce or a cabbage-leaf. 
There is usually a snowy curtain, fringed ; just at 
the parting of the draperies an old woman is 
always seated, with chin and nose-tip meeting, 
her bent figure rounding over the square of her 
knitting-needles. 

It was such a window as this that made us feel, 
before our bonnets were laid aside, that Caen was 
glad to see us. The window directly opposite 
was wide open. Instead of one there were half a 
dozen songsters aloft ; we were so near their cages 
that the cat-bird whistled, to call his master and 
mistress to witness the intrusion of these stran- 
gers. The master brought a hot iron along — he 
was a tailor and was just in the act of pressing a 
seam. His wife was scraping carrots, and she 
tucked her bowl between her knees as she came to 
stand and gaze across. A cry rose up within the 
low room. Some one else wished to see the new- 
comers. The tailor laid aside his iron to lift 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 255 

proudly, far out beyond the cages, tlie fattest, 
rosiest offspring that ever was born in an attic. 
The babe smote its hands for pure joy. We were 
better than a broken doll— we were alive. The 
family as a family accepted us as one among- them. 
The man smiled, and so did his wife. Presently 
both nodded graciously, as if, understanding the 
cause of our intrusion on their aerial privacy, they 
wished to present us with the compliment of their 
welcome. The manners among these garret-win- 
dows, we murmured, were really uncommonly 

good. 

" Bonjour, mesdames ! " It was the third time 
the woman had passed, and we were still at the 
window. Her husband left his seam to join her. 

" Ces dames are not accustomed to such heights 
— a ces hcmteurs^peut-etre ?" 

The ladies in truth were not, unhappily, always 
so well lodged ; from this height at least one could 
hope to see a city. 

" Ah ! ha ! dest gai par ici, n'est-cepas ? One has 
the sun all to one's self, and air ! Ah ! for fresh- 
ness one must climb to an attic in these days, it 
appears." 

It was impossible to be more contented on a 
height than was this family of tailors ; for when 
not cooking, or washing, or tossing the " 6e'&e' " to 
the birds, the wife stitched and stitched all her 
husband cut, besides taking a turn at the family 
socks. Part of this contentment came, no doubt, 
from the variety of shows and amusements with 
which the family, as a family, were perpetually sup- 
plied. For workers, there were really too many so- 



256 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

cial distractions abroad in the streets ; it was almost 
impossible for tbe two to meet all the demands 
on their time. Now it was the jingie of a horse's 
bell-collar ; the tailor, between two snips at a col- 
lar, must see who was stopping at the hotel door. 
Later a horn sounded ; this was only the fish-ven- 
der, the wife merely bent her head over the flow- 
ers to be quite sure. Next a trumpet, clear and 
strong, rang its notes up into the roof -eaves ; this 
was something 5e'6e must see and hear — all three 
were bending at the first throbbing touch of that 
music on the still air, to see whence it came. Thus 
you see, even in the provinces, in a French street, 
something is quite certain to happen ; it all de- 
pends on the choice one makes in life of a window 
— of being rightly placed — whether or not one 
finds life dull or amusing. This tailor had the 
talent of knowing where to stand, at life's corner — 
for him there was a ceaseless procession of excite- 
ments. 

It may be that our neighbor's talent for seeing 
was catching. It is certain that no city we had 
ever before looked out upon had seemed as crowded 
with sights. The whole history of Caen was writ 
in stone against the blue of the sky. Here, below 
us, sat the lovely old town, seated in the grasses of 
her plain. Yonder was her canal, as an artery to 
keep her pulse bounding in response to the sea ; 
the ship -masts and the drooping sails seemed 
strange companions for the great trees and the 
old garden walls. Those other walls William built 
to cincture the city, Froissart found three centu- 
ries later so amazingly " strong, full of drapery and 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 257 

merclianclise, rich citizens, noble dames, damsels, 
and fine cliurches," for this girdle of the Conquer- 
or's great bastions the eye looks in vain. But Will- 
iam's vow still proclaims its fulfilment ; the spire 
of I'Abbaye aux Hommes, and the Romanesque 
towers of its twin, I'Abbaye aux Dames, face each 
other, as did William and Mathilde at the altar — 
that union that had to be expiated by the penance 
of building" these stones in the air. 

Commend me to an attic window to put one in 
sympathetic relations with cathedral spires ! At 
this height we and they, for a part of their flight 
upward, at least, were on a common level — and 
we all know what confidences come about from the 
accident of propinquity. They seemed to assure 
us as never before when sitting at their feet, the 
difficulties they had overcome in climbing heaven- 
ward. Every stone that looked down upon the 
city wore this look of triumph. 

In the end it was this Caen in the air — ^it was this 
aerial city of finials, of towers, of peaked spires, of 
carved chimneys, of tree-tops over which the clouds 
rode ; of a plain, melting — like a sea — into the 
mists of the horizon; this high, bright region 
peopled with birds and pigeons ; of a sky tender, 
translucent, and as variable as human emotions ; 
of an air that was rapture to breathe, and of nights 
in which the stars were so close they might almost 
be handled ; it was this free, hilly city of the roofs 
that is still the Caen I remember best. 

There were other features of Caen that were 
good to see, I also remember. Her street expres- 
sion, on the whole, was very pleasing. It was 



258 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

singularly calm and composed, even for a city in a 
plain. But tlie quiet came, doubtless, from its pop- 
ulation being- away at the races. The few towns- 
people who, for obvious reasons, were stay-at- 
homes, were uncommonly civil ; Caen had evidently 
preserved the tradition of good manners. An 
army of cripples was in waiting to point the way 
to the church doors ; a regiment of beggars was 
within them, with nets cast already for the catch- 
ing of the small fry of our pennies. In the gay, 
geranium-lit garden circling the side walls of St. 
Pierre there were many legless soldiers ; the old 
houses we Avent to see later on in the high street 
seemed, by contrast, to have survived other wars, 
those of the Directory and the Mountain, with a 
really scandalous degree of good fortune. On our 
way to a still greater church than St. Pierre, to 
the Abbaye aux Dames, that, like the queen who 
built her, sits on the throne of a hill — on our way 
thither we passed innumerable other ancient man- 
sions. None of these were down in the guide- 
books ; they were, therefore, invested with the 
deeper charm of personal discovery. Once away\ 
from the little city of the shops, the real Caen 
came out to greet us. It was now a gray, sad, 
walled town ; behind the walls, level-browed Fran- 
cis I. windows looked gravely over the tufts of ver- 
dure ; here was an old gateway ; there what might 
once have been a portcullis, now only an arched 
wreath of vines ; still beyond, a group of severe- 
looking mansions with great iron bound windows 
Xoresented the front of miniature fortresses. 
And everywhere gardens and gardens. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 259 

Turn YN^liere you would, you would only turn to 
face verdure, foliag-e, and masses of flowers. Tlie 
high walls could neither keep back the odors nor 
hide the luxuriance of these Caen gardens. These 
must have been the streets that bewitched Madame 
de Sevigne. Through just such a maze of foliage 
Charlotte Corday has also walked, again and again, 
with her wonderful face aflame with her great pur- 
pose, before the purpose ripened into the dagger 
thrust at Marat's bared breast — that avenging Angel 
of Beauty stabbing the Beast in his bath. Auber, 
with his Anacreontic ballads in his young head, 
would seem more fittingly framed in this old Caen 
that runs up a hill-side. But women as beautiful 
as Marie Stuart and the Corday can deal safely in 
the business of assassination, the world will al- 
ways continue to aureole their pictures with a gar- 
land of roses. 

The Abbaye on its hill was reached at last. All 
Caen lay below us ; from the hillside it flowed 
as a sea rolls away from a great ship's sides. 
Down below, far below, as if buttressing the town 
that seemed rushing away recklessly to the waste 
of the plains, stands the Abbaye's twin-brother, 
the Aux Hommes. Plains, houses, roof - tops, 
spires, all were swimming in a sea of golden light ; 
nothing seemed quite real or solid, so vast was the 
prospect and so ethereal was the medium through 
which we saw it. PerhaxDS it was the great con- 
trast between that shimmering, unstable city be- 
low, that reeked and balanced itself like some hu- 
man creature whose dazzled vision had made its 
footing insecure — it may be that it was this note 



260 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

of contrast which invested this vast structure be- 
striding- the hill, with such astonishing grandeur. 
I have known few, if any, other churches produce 
so instantaneous an effect of a beauty that was one 
with austerity. This great Norman is more Puri- 
tan than French ; it is Norman Gothic v.dth a Pu- 
ritan severity. 

The sound of a deep sonorous music took us 
quickly within. It was as mysterious a music 
as ever haunted a church aisle. The vast and 
snowy interior was as deserted as a Presbyterian 
church on a week-day. Yet the sound of the rich, 
strong voices filled all the place. There was no 
sound of tingling accompaniment : there was no 
organ pipe, even, to add its sensuous note of color. 
There was only the sound of the voices, as they 
swelled, and broke, and began afresh. 

The singing went on. 

It was a slow "plain chant." Into the great 
arches the sonorous chanting beat upon the ear 
with a rhythmic perfection that, even without the 
lovely flavor of its sweetness, would have made a 
beauty of its own. In this still and holy place, 
with the company of the stately Norman arche^ 
soaring aloft — beneath the sombre glory of the 
giant aisles — the austere simplicity of this chant 
made the heart beat, one knew not why, and the 
eyes moisten, one also knew not why. 

We had followed the voices. They came, we 
found, from within the choir. A pattering- of steps 
proclaimed we were to go no farther. 

" Not there, my ladies — step this way, one only 
enters the choir by going into the hospital." 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 261 

The voice was low and sweet ; the smile, a 
spark of divinity set in a woman's face ; and tlie 
whole was clothed in a nun's garb. 

We followed the fluttering- robes ; we passed 
out once more into the sunlit parvis. We spoke 
to the smile and it answered : yes, the choir was 
reserved for the Sisters — they must be able to ap- 
proach it from the convent and the hospital ; it 
had always, since the time of Mathilde, been re- 
served for the nuns ; would we pass this way ? 
The way took us into an open vaulted passage, 
past a grating where sat a white-capped Sister, 
past a group of girls and boys carrying wreaths 
and garlands — they were making ready for the 
Fete-Dieu, our nun explained — past, at the last, 
a series of corridors through which, faintly at first, 
and then sweeter and fuller, there struck once 
more upon our ears the sounds of the deep and 
resonant chanting. 

The black gown stopped all at once. The nun 
was standing in front of a green curtain. She 
lifted it. This was what we saw. The semicircle 
of a wide apse. Behind, rows upon rows of round 
arches. Below the arches, in the choir-stalls, a 
long half-circle of stately figures. The figures 
were draped from head to foot. A^^ien they bent 
their heads not an inch of flesh was visible, except 
a few hands here and there that had escaped the 
long, wide sleeves. All these figures were motion- 
less ; they were as immobile as statues ; occasion- 
ally, at the end of a " Gloria," all turned to face 
the high altar. At the end of the " Amen " a 
cloud of black veils swept the ground. Then for 



262 TERES NORMANDY INNS. 

several measures of tlie chant tlie figures were 
again as marble. In each of tlie low, round arches, a 
stately woman, tall and nobly planned, di-aped like 
a goddess turned saint, stood and chanted to her 
Lord. Had the Norman builders carved these 
women, ages ago, standing about Mathilde's tomb, 
those ancient sculptures could not have embodied, 
in more ideal image, the type of womanly renun- 
ciation and of a saint's fervor of exaltation. 

We left them, with the rich chant still full upon 
their lips, with heads bent low, calm as graven 
images. It was only the bloom on a cheek, here 
and there, that made one certain of the youth en- 
tombed within these nuns' garb. 

" Happy, mesdames ? Oh, mats tres heureuses, 
toutes — there are no women so happy as we. See 
how they come to us, from all the country around. 
En voila une — did you remark the pretty one, with 
the book, seated, all in white % She is to be a full 
Sister in a month. She comes from a noble fam- 
ily in the south. She was here one day, she saw 
the life of the Sisters, of us all working here, 
among the poor soldiers — elle a vu ga, et pour tout 
de bon, s'est donnee a Dieu ! " ^ 

The smile of our nun was rapturous. She was 
proving its source. Once more we saw the young 
countess who had given herself to her God. An 
hour later, when we had reached the hospital 
wards, her novice's robes were trailing the ground. 
She was on her knees in the very middle of the 
great bare room. She was rej)eating' the office of 
the hour, aloud, with clasped hands and uplifted 
head. On her lovely young face there was the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 263 

g'low of a divine ecstasy. All the wliite faces from 
the long- rows of the white beds were bending 
toward her ; to one even in all fulness of strength 
and health that girlish figure, praying beside the 
great vase of the snowy daisies, with the glow 
that irradiated the sweet, pure face, might easily 
enough have seemed an angel's. 

As companions for our tour of the grounds we 
had two young Englishmen. Both eyed the nuns 
in the distance of the corridors and the gardens 
with the sharpened glances all men level at the 
women who have renounced them. It is a mys- 
tery no man ever satisfactorily fathoms. 

" Queer notion, this, a lot of women shutting 
themselves up," remarked the younger of the two. 
" In England, now, they'd all go in for being 
old maids, drinking tea and coddling cats, you 
know." 

" I wonder which are the happier, your coun- 
trywomen or these Sisters, who, in renouncing 
the world devote their lives to serving it. See, 
over yonder ! " and I nodded to a scene beneath 
the wide avenue of the limes. Two tall Augus- 
tines were supporting a crippled old man ; they 
were showing him some fresh garden-beds. Be- 
yond was a gayer group. Some of the lay sisters 
were tugging at a huge basket of clothes, fresh 
from the laundry. Running across the grass, 
with flying draperies, two nuns, laughing as they 
ran, each striving to outfoot the other, were has- 
tening to their rescue. * 

" They keep their bloom, running about like 
that ; only healthy nuns I ever saw." 



264: THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

" That's because they have something- better 
than cats to coddle." 

" Ah, ha ! that's not bad. It's a slow suicide, 
all the same. But here we are, at the top ; it's a 
tine outlook, is it not ? " 

The young" man panted as he reached the top 
of the Maze, one of the chief glories of the old 
Abbaye grounds. He had a fair and sensitive 
face ; a weak product on the whole, he seemed, 
compared with the nobly-built, vigorous-bodied 
nuns crowding the choir-stalls yonder. Instead 
of that long-, slow suicide, surely these women 
should be doing- their g-reater work of reproducing- 
a race. Even an open-air cell seems to me out of 
place in our century. It will be entirely out of 
fashion in time, doubtless, as the mediaeval cell 
has gone along with the old castle life, whose 
princely mode of doing things made a nunnery 
the only respectable hiding-place for the undow- 
ered daughters. 

As we crept down into Caen, it was to find it 
thick with the dust of twilight. The streets were 
dense with other things besides the thickened 
light. The Caen world was crowding homeward i^ 
all the boulevards and side-streets were alive with 
a moving throng of dusty, noisy, weary holiday- 
makers. The town was abroad in the streets to 
hear the news of the horses, and to learn the his- 
tory of the betting. 

Although we had g-one to church instead of 
doing the races, many of those who had peopled 
the gay race-track came back to us. The table 
d'hote, at our inn that night, was as noisy as a 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 965 

Parisian cafe. It was scarcely as discreet, I 
should say. On our way to our attic that night, 
the little corridors made us a really amazing 
number of confidences. 

It was strange, but all the shoes appeared to 
have come in pairs of twos. Never was there 
such a collection of boots in couj^les. Strange it 
was, also, to see how many little secrets these rows 
of candid shoe-leather disclosed. Here a pert, 
coquettish pair of ties were having as little in 
common as possible with the stout, somewhat 
clumsy walking-boots next them. In the two just 
beyond, at the next door, how the delicate, slender 
buttoned kids leaned over, floppingly, to rest on 
the coarse, yet strong, hobnailed dumpers ! 

Shabbier and shabbier grew the shoes, as we 
climbed upward. With each pair of stairs we 
seemed to have left a rung in the ladder of fortune 
behind. But even the very poorest in pocket had 
brought his little extravagance with him to the 
races. 

The only genuine family party had taken re- 
fuge, like ourselves, in the attic. 

At the very next door to our own. Monsieur, 
Madame, et Bebe proclaimed, by the casting of 
their dusty shoes, that they also, like the rest of 
the world, had come to Caen to see the horses run. 



CHAPTEE XXIV. 



A DAY AT BAYEUX AND ST. LO. 




tottering" in decay. 



Caen seated in its plain, 
wearing its erown of stee- 
ples — this was onr last 
glimpse of tlie beautiful 
city. Our way to Bayeux 
was strewn thick with these 
Normandy j ewels ; wit h 
towns smaller than Caen ; 
' with Gothic belfries ; with 
ruined priories, and with 
castles, stately even when 
When the last castle was lost 
in a thicket, we discovered that our iron horse was 
stopping in the very middle of a field. If the 
guard had snouted out the name of any Ameri- 
can city, built overnight, on a Western prairie, we 
should have felt entirely at home in this meadow ; 
we should have known any clearing, with grass 
and daisies, was a very finished evidence of civili- 
zation at high pressure. 

But a lane as the beginning of a cathedral 
town ! 

Evidently Bayeux has had a Ruskinian dread 
of steam-whistles, for this ancient seat of bish- 
ops has succeeded in retaining the charms of 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 267 

its old rustic approaches, whatever else it may 
have sacrificed on the altar of modernness. 

An harangue, at the door of the quaint old 
Normandy omnibus, by the driver of the same, 
was proof that the lesson of good oratory, ad- 
ministered by generations of bishojps, had not 
been lost on the Bayeux inhabitants. Two re- 
bellious English tourists furnished the text for 
the driver's sermon ; they were showing, with all 
the naive pride of iiedestrians, their intention of 
footing the distance between the station and the 
cathedral. This was an independence of spirit no 
Norman could endure to see. What! these gen- 
tlemen proposed to walk, in the sun, through 
clouds of dust, when here was a carriage, with 
ladies for companions, at their command? The 
coach had come down the hill on purpose to con- 
duct Messieurs les voyageurs ; how did these gen- 
tlemen suppose Sipere de famille Avas to make his 
living if the fashion of walking came in ? And 
the rusty red vest was thumbed by the g'narled 
hand of the father, who was also an orator ; and 
a high-peaked hat swept the ground before the 
hard-hearted gentlemen. All the tragedy of the 
situation had come about from the fact that the 
tourists, also, had gotten themselves up in cos- 
tume. When two fine youths have risen early in 
the day to put on checked stockings, leggings, 
russet walking-shoes, and a plaited coat with a 
belt, such attire is one to be lived up to. Once 
in knickerbockers and a man's getting into an 
omnibus is really too ignominious ! With such 
a road before two sets of such well-shaped calves — 



268 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

a road all shaped and graded — this, indeed, would 
be flying- in the face of a veritable providence of 
bishop -builders intent on maintaining- pastoral 
effects. 

The knickerbockers relentlessly strode onward; 
the driver had addressed himself to hearts of 
stone. But he had not yet exhausted his quiver 
of appeal. Englishmen walk, well ! there's no 
accounting- for the taste of Britons who are also 
still half savages ; but even a barbarian must eat. 
Half-way up the hill, the rattle of the loose- 
jointed vehicle came to a dead stop. With great 
gravity the guard descended from his seat ; this 
latter he lifted to take from the entrails of the old 
vehicle a handful of handbills. He, the horse, 
the omnibus, and we, all waited for, what do you 
suppose % To besprinkle the walking Eng-lish- 
men as they came within rang-e with a shower of 
circulars announcing- that at " midi, cliez Nigaud, 
il y aura un dejeuner cJiaud." 

The driver turned to look in at the window — 
and to nod as he turned — he felt so certain of 
our sympathy ; had he not made sure of them at 
last ? 

A group of g-ossamer caps beneath a row of sad, 
gray-faced houses was our Bayeux welcome; The 
faces beneath the caps watched our approach with 
the same sobriety as did the old houses — they had 
the antique Norman seriousness of aspect. The 
noise we made with the clatter and rattle of our 
broken-down vehicle seemed an impertinence, in 
the face of such severe countenances. AVe might 
have been entering- a deserted city, except for 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 269 

the presence of these motionless Normandy fig- 
ures. The cathedral met us at the threshold of 
the city : magnificent, majestic, a huge gray 
mountain of stone, but severe in outline, as if the 
Norman builders had carved on the vast surface 
of its fa9ade an imprint of their own grave 
earnestness. 

We were somewhat early for the hot breakfast 
at Nigaud's. There was, however, the appetizing 
smell of soup, with a flourishing pervasiveness of 
onion in the pot, to sustain the vigor of an appe- 
tite whetted by a start at dawn. The knicker- 
bockers came in with the omelette. But one is 
not a Briton on his travels for nothing ; one does 
not leave one's own island to be the dupe of 
French inn -keepers. The smell of the soup had 
not departed with our empty plates, and the 
voice of the walkers was not of the softest when 
they demanded their rights to be as odorous as 
we. There is always a curiously agreeable sensa- 
tion, to an American, in seeing an Englishman 
angry ; to get angry in public is one thing we 
do badly ; and in his cup of wrath our British 
brother is sublime — he is so superbly unconscious 
— and so contemptuous — of the fact that the 
world sometimes finds anger ridiculous. 

At the other end of the long and narrow table 
two other travellers were seated, a man and a 
woman. But food, to them, it was made mani- 
festly evident, was a matter of the most supreme 
indifference. They were at that radiant moment 
of life when eating is altogether too gross a form 
of indulgence. For these two were at the most 



270 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

interesting- period of French courtship — just after 
the wedding" ceremony, when, with the priest's 
blessing-, had come the consent of their world and 
of tradition to their making the other's acquaint- 
ance. This provincial bride and her husband 
of a day were beginning, as all rustic courting 
begins, by a furtive holding- of hands ; this 
particular couple, in view of our proximity and 
their own mutual embarrassment, had recourse to 
the subterfuge of desperate lunges at the other's 
fingers, beneath the table-cloth. The screen, as a 
screen, did not work. It deceived no one — as the 
bride's pale-gray dress and her flowery bonnet 
also deceived no one — save herself. This latter, 
in certain ranks of life, is the bride's travelling 
costume, the world over. And the world over, it 
is worn by the recently wedded with the profound 
conviction that in donning it they have discovered 
the most complete of all disguises. 

This bride and groom were obviously in the 
first rapture of mutual discovery. The honey in 
their moon was not fresher than their views of the 
other's tastes and x^redilections. 

" Ah — ah — you like to travel quickly — to see 
everything, to take it all in in a gulp — so do I, 
and then to digest at one's leisure." 

The bride was entirely of this mind. Only, she 
murmured, there were other things one must not 
do too quickly — one must go slow in matters of 
the heart — to make quite sure of all the stages. 

But her husband was at her throat, that is, his 
eyes and lips were, as he answered, so that all the 
table might partake of his emotion — " No, no, the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 271 

quicker tlie heart feels the quicker love comes. 
Tiens, voyons, man am.ie, toi-meme, tu m'as confie " — 
and the rest was lost in the bride's ear. 

Apparently we were to have them, these brides, 
for the rest of our journey, in all stages and of all 
ages ! Thus far none others had appeared as de- 
termined as were these two honey-mooners, that 
all the world should share their bliss. They were 
cracking iilberts with their disengaged fingers, 
the other two being closely interlocked, in quite 
scandalous openness, when we left them. 

That was the only form of excitement that 
greeted us in the quiet Bayeux streets. The very 
street urchins invited repose °, the few we saw 
were seated sedately on the threshold of their own 
door -steps, frequent sallies abroad into this 
quiet city having doubtless convinced them of 
the futility of all sorties. The old houses wore 
their carved fagades as old ladies wear rich lace — 
they had reached the age. when the vanity of per- 
sonal adornment had ceased to inflate. The great 
cathedral, towering above the tranquil town, w^ore 
a more conscious air ; its significance was too 
great a contrast to the quiet city asleep at its 
feet. In these long, slow centuries the towers 
had grown to have the air of protectors. 

The famous tapestries we went to see later, 
might easily enough have been worked yesterday, 
in any one of the old mediaeval houses ; Mathilde 
and her hand-maidens would find no more — not so 
much — to distract and disturb them now in this 
still and tranquil town, with its sad gray streets 
and its moss-grown door-steps, as they must in 



272 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

those earlier bustling- centuries of the Conqueror. 
Even then, when Normandy was only beginning 
its career of importance among the great French 
provinces, Bayeux was already old. She was 
far more Norse then than Norman; she was 
Scandinavian to the core ; even her nobles spoke 
in harsh Norse syllables; they were as little 
French as it was possible to be, and yet g-overn a 
people. 

Mathilde, when she toiled over her frame, like 
all great writers, was doubtless quite unconscious 
she was producing a masterpiece. She was, how- 
ever, in point of fact, the very first among the 
great French realists. No other French writer has 
written as graphically as she did with her needle, 
of the life and customs of their day. That long 
scroll of tapestry, for truth and a naive perfection 
of sincerity — where will you find it equalled or 
even approached ? It is a rude Homeric epic ; 
and I am not quite certain that it ought not to 
rank higher than even some of the more famous 
epics of the world — since Mathilde had to create 
the mould of art into which she poured her story. 
For who had thought before her of making wom- 
en's stitches write or paint a great historical 
event, crowded with homely details which now are 
dubbed archaeological veracities 1 

Bayeux and its tapestry ; its grave com^aany of 
antique houses; its glorious cathedral dominat- 
ing the whole — what a lovely old background 
against which poses the eternal modernness of the 
young noon sun ! The history of Bayeux is com- 
monly given in a paragraph. Our morning's walk 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 273 

had proved to us it was tlie kind of town tliat does 
more to re-create the historic past than all the 
pag'es of a Guizot or a Challamel. 

The bells that were ringing out the hour of high- 
noon from the cathedral towers at Bayeux were 
making the heights of St. L6, two hours later, 
as noisy as a village fair. The bells, for rivals, had 
the clatter of women's tongues. I think I never, 
before or since, have beheld so lively a company 
of washerwomen as were beating- their clothes in 
Yire River. The river bends prettily just below 
the St. L6 heights, as if it had g^one out of its way 
to courtesy to a hill. But even the waters, in 
their haste to be polite, could not course beneath 
the great bridge as swiftly as ran those women's 
tongues. There were a good hundred of them at 
work beneath the washing - sheds. Now, these 
sheds, anywhere in France, are really the open- 
air club - room of the French peasant woman ; 
the whole dish of the village gossip is hung out 
to dry, having previously been well soused and 
aired, along with the blouses and the coarse che- 
mises. The town of St. L6 had evidently fur- 
nished these club members of the washing-stones 
with some fat dish of gossip — the heads were as 
close as currants on a stem, as they bent in 
groups over the bright waters. They had told it 
all to the stream ; and the stream rolled the vol- 
ume of the talk along as it carried along also the 
gay, sparkling reflections of the life and the toil 
that bent over it — of the myriad reflections of 
those moving, bare-armed figures, of the brilliant 
kerchiefs, of the wet blue and gray jerseys, and of 



274 THREE NOBMANDT INNS. 

the long prismatic line of tlie damp, motley-hued 
clothes that were fluttering in the wind. 

The bells' clangor was an assurance that some- 
thing was happening on top of the hill. Just 
what happened was as altogether pleasing a spec- 
tacle, after a long and arduous climb up a hillside, 
as it has often been my good fortune to encounter. 

The portals of the church of Notre-Dame were 
wide open. Within, as we looked over the shoul- 
ders of the townspeople who, like us, had come to 
see what the bells meant by their ringing, within 
the church there was a rich and sombre dusk ; out 
of this dusk, indistinctly at first, lit by the tremu- 
lous flicker of a myriad of candles, came a line 
of white -veiled heads; then another of young 
boys, with faces as pale as the nosegays adorning 
their brand-new black coats ; next the scarlet- 
robed choristers, singing, and behind them still 
others swinging incense that thickened the dusk. 
Suddenly, like a vision, the white veils passed out 
into the sunlight, and we saw that the faces be- 
neath the veils were young and comely. The 
faces were still alternately lighted by the flare of 
the burning tapers and the glare of the noon sun. 
The long procession ended at last in a straggling 
group of old peasants with fine tremulous mouths, 
a- tremble with pride and with feeling ; for here 
they were walking in full sight of their town, in 
their holiday coats, with their knees treacherously 
unsteady from the thrill of the organ's thunder 
and the sweetness of the choir -boys' singing. 

Whether it was a pardon, or a fete, or a first 
communion, we never knew. But the town of St. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 275 

L6 is ever gloriously lighted, for iis, with a nimbus 
of young heads, such as encircled the earlier ma- 
donnas. 

After such a goodly spectacle, the rest of the 
town was a tame morsel. AVe took a parting sniff 
of the incense still left in the eastern end of the 
church's nave ; there was a bit of good glass in a 
window to reward us. Outside the church, on the 
west from the Petite Place, was a wide outlook over 
the lovely vale of the Vire, with St. L6 itself twist- 
ing and turning in graceful postures down the hill- 
side. 

On the same prosjDect two kings have looked, 
and before the kings a saint. St. L6 or St. Lau- 
dus himself, who gave his name to the town, must, 
in the sixth century, have gazed on virgin forests 
stretching away from the hill far as the eye could 
reach. Charlemagne, three hundred years later, 
in his turn, found the site a goodly one, one to 
tempt men to worship the Creator of such beauty, 
for here he founded the great Abbey of St. Croix, 
long since gone with the monks who peopled it. 
Louis XI., that mystic wearing the warrior's 
helmet, set his seal of approval on the hill, by 
sending the famous glass yonder in the cathedral, 
when the hill and the St. L6 iDeople beat the Bre- 
tons who had come to capture both. 

Like saint, and kings, and monks, and warriors, 
we in our turn crept down the hill. For we also 
were done with the town. 



CHAPTEE XXY. 



A DINNEE AT COUTANCES. 



The way from St. L6 to Cou- 
tances is a pleasant way. 
There is no map of the 
country that will give you 
even a hint of its true 
character, any more than 
from a photograph you 
can hope to g"ain an in- 
_ ';:; sight into the moral qual- 

ities of a pretty woman. 
Here, at last, was the ideal Normandy landscape. 
It was a country with a savage look — a savage that 
had been trained to follow the plough. Even in 
its color it had retained the true barbarians' in- 
stinct for a good primary. Here were no melting- 
yellow mustard-fields, nor flame-lit poiDpied mead-' 
ows, nor blue-bells lifting- their baby-blue eyes 
out of the grain. All the land was green. Fields, 
meadows, forests, plains — all were g-reen, green, 
green. The features of the landscape had changed 
with this change in coloring. The slim, fragile 
grace of slim trees and fragile cliffs had been re- 
placed by trees of heroic proportions, and by out- 
lines nobly rounded and full — like the breasts of a 
mother. The whole country had an astonishing 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 277 

look of vig-or — of the vigor wliicli comes with rude 
strength ; and it had that charm which goes with 
all untamed beauty — the power to sting one into a 
sense of agitated enjoyment. 

Even the farm-houses had been suddenly trans- 
formed into fortresses. Each one of the groups of 
the farm enclosures had its outer walls, its minia- 
ture turrets, and here and there its rounded bas- 
tions. Each farm, apparently, in the olden days 
had been a citadel unto itself. The Breton had 
been a very troublesome neighbor for many a 
long century ; every jDloughman, until a few hun- 
dred years ago, was quite likely to turn soldier at 
a second's notice — every true Norman must look 
to his own sword to defend his hearth-stone. Such 
is the story those stone turrets that cap the farm 
walls tell you — each one of these turrets was an 
open lid through which the farmer could keep his 
eye on Brittany. 

Meanwhile, along the roads as we rushed swiftly 
by, a quieter life was passing. The farm wagons 
were jogging peacefully along on a high-road as 
smooth as a fine lady's palm — and as white. The 
horses were harnessed one before the other, in in- 
terminable length of line. Sometimes six, some- 
times eight, even so many as ten, marched with great 
gravity, and with that majestic dignity only pos- 
sible to full-blooded Percherons, one after the 
other. They each wore a saddle-cloth of blue sheep- 
skin. On their mottled haunches this bit of color 
made their polished coats to gleam like unto a liz- 
ards' skin. 

Meanwhile, also, we were nearing Coutances. 



278 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

The farm-houses were fortresses no lono-er ; the 
thatched roofs were one once more with the green 
of the high-roads ; for even in the okl days there 
was a great walled city set up on a hill, to which 
refuge all the j)eople about for miles could turn for 
protection. 

A city that is set on a hill ! That for me 
is commonly recommendation enough. Such a 
city, so set, promises at the very least the dual 
distinction of looking up as well as looking down ; 
it is the nearer heaven, and just so much the 
farther removed from earth. 

Coutances, for a city with its head in the air, 
was surprisingly friendly. It went out of its way 
to make us at home. At the very station, down 
below in the plain, it had sent the most loquaci- 
ous of coach-drivers to put us in immediate touch 
with its present interests. All the city, as the 
coarse blue blouse, flourishing its whip, took 
pains to explain, was abroad in the fields; the 
forests, tiens, down yonder through the trees, we 
could see for ourselves how the young ]people were 
making the woods as crowded as a ball-room. 
The city, as a city, was stripping the land and the 
trees bare — it would be as bald as a new-born 
babe by the morrow. But then, of a certainty, we 
also had come for the fete — or, and here a puzzled 
look of doubt beclouded the provincial's eyes — 
might we, perchance, instead, have come for the 
trial ? Mais non, pas Qa, these ladies had never 
come for that, since they did not even know the 
court was sitting, now, this very instant, at Cou- 
tances. And — sapristi ! but there was a trial go- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 279 

ing on — one to make the blood curdle ; he himself 
had not slept, the rustic coachman added, as he 
shivered beneath his blouse, all the night before — 
the blood had run so cold in his veins. 

The horse and the road were all the while going 
up the hill. The road was easily one that might 
have been the path of warriors ; the walls, still 
loft}'- on the side nearest the town, bristled with a 
turret or a bastion to remind us Coutances had 
not been set on a hill for mere purposes of beauty. 
The ramparts of the old fortifications had been 
turned into a broad promenade. Even as we 
jolted past, beneath the great breadth of the 
trees' verdure we could see how gloriously the 
prospect widened — the country below reaching 
out to the horizon like the waters of a sea that 
end only in indefiniteness. 

The city itself seemed to grow out of the walls 
and the trees. Here and there a few scattered 
houses grouped themselves as if meaning to start 
a street ; but a maze of foliage made a straight 
line impossible. Finally a large grouia of build- 
ings, with severe stone faces, took a more serious 
plunge away from the vines ; they had shaken 
themselves free and were soon soberly ranging 
themselves into the parallel lines of narrow city 
streets. 

It was a pleasant surprise to find that, for once, 
a Norman blouse had told the truth ; for here 
were the people of Coutances coming up from the 
fields to prove it. In all these narrow streets a 
great multitude of people were passing us ; some 
were laden with vines, others with young forest 



280 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

trees, and still others with, rude garlands of flow- 
ers. The peasant women's faces, as the bent fig- 
ures staggered beneath a young fir-tree, were pur- 
ple, but their smiles were as gay as the wild 
flowers with which the stones were thickly strewn. 
Their words also were as rough : 

" Diantre — mails c'e loiurd ! " 

" E-hen, e toi, tu w' bougeo7is point, toi! " 
And the nearest fir-tree carrier to our carriage- 
wheels cracked a swift blow over the head of a 
vine-bearer, who being but an infant of two, could 
not make time with the swift foot of its mother. 

The smell of the flowers was everywhere. Fir- 
trees perfumed the air. Every doorstejD was a 
garden. The courtyards were alive with the 
squat figures of capped maidens, wreathing and 
twisting greens and garlands. And in the streets 
there was such a noise as was never before heard 
in a city on a hill-top. 

For Coutances was to hold its great fete on the 
morrow. 

It was a relief to turn in from the noise and 
hubbub to the bright courtyard of our inn. The 
brightness thereof, and of the entire establish-^ 
ment, indeed, appeared to find its centraL source 
in the brilliant eyes of our hostess. Never was 
an inn-keeper gifted with a vision at once so om- 
niscient and so effulgent. Those eyes were every- 
where ; on us, on our bags, our bonnets, our boots ; 
they divined our wants, and answered beforehand 
our unuttered longings. We had come far ? the 
eyes asked, burning a hole through our gossamer 
evasions ; from Paris, perhaps — a glance at our 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 281 

bonnets proclaimed tlie eyes knew all ; we were 
here for the fete, to see the bishop on the mor- 
row ; that was well ; we were going- on to the 
Mont ; and the eyes scented the shortness of our 
stay by a swift glance at our luggage. 

" N'umero quatre, cm troisieme I " 

There was no appeal possible. The eyes had 
penetrated the disguise of our courtesy ; we were 
but travellers of a night ; the top story was built 
for such as we. 

But such a top story, and such a chamber 
therein ! A great, wide, low room ; beams deep 
and black, with here and there a brass bit hang- 
ing : waxed floors, polished to mirrory perfection ; 
a great bed clad in snowy draperies, with a snow- 
white duvet of gigantic proportions. The walls 
were gray with lovely bunches of faded rosebuds 
flang abroad on the soft surface ; and to give a 
quaint and antique note to the whole, over the 
chimney was a bit of worn tapestry with formid- 
able dungeon, a Norman keep in the background, 
and well up in front, a stalwart young master of 
the hounds, with dogs in leash, of the heavy Nor- 
man type of bulging muscle and high cheek- 
bones. 

Altogether, there were worse fates in the world 
than to be travellers of a night, with the destiny 
of such a room as part of the fate. 

When we descended the steep, narrow spiral of 
steps to the dining-room, it was to find the eyes 
of our hostess brighter than ever. The noise in 
the streets had subsided. It was long after dusk, 
and Coutances was evidently a good iDrovincial. 



282 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

But in tlie gay little dining'-room there was an as- 
tonishing bustle and excitement. 

The ftte and the court had brought a crowd of 
diners to the inn-table ; when we were all seated 
we made quite a company at the long, narrow 
board. The candles and lamps lit up any number 
of Vandyke-pointed beards, of bald heads, of 
loosely-tied cravats, and a few matronly bosoms 
straining at the buttons of silk holiday gowns. 
For the Fete-Dieu had brought visitors besides 
ourselves from all the country round ; and then 
" a first communion is like a marriage, all the rela- 
tives must come, as doubtless we knew," was a 
bald-head's friendly beginning of his soup and 
his talk, as we took our seats beside him. 

With the a]3pearance of the potage conversation, 
like a battle between foes eager for contest, had 
immediately engaged itself. The setting of the 
table and the air of companionshi]p pervading the 
establishment were aiders and abettors to imme- 
diate intercourse. Nothing could be prettier than 
the Caen bowls with their bunches of purple 
jjhlox and spiked blossoms. Even a metropolitaux 
table might have taken a lesson from the perfec- 
tion of the lighting of the long board. In order 
that her guests should feel the more entirely at 
home, our brilliant-eyed hostess came in with 
the soup ; she took her place behind it at the 
head of the table. 

It was evident the merchants from Cherbourg 
who had come as witnesses to the trial, had had 
many a conversational bout before now with mad- 
ame's ready wit. So had two of the town lawyers. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 283 

Even tlie commercial gentlemen, for once, were 
experiencing- a brief moment of armed suspense, 
before tliey flung themselves into the arena of 
talk. At first, or it would never have been in the 
provinces, this talk at the long table, everyone 
broke into speech at once. There was a flood of 
words ; one's sense of hearing- was stunned by the 
noise. Gradually, as the cider and the thin red 
wine were passed, our neighbors gave digestion a 
chance ; the din became less thick with words ; 
each listened when the other talked. But, as the 
volume of speech lessened, the interest thickened. 
It finally became concentrated, this interest, into 
true French fervor when the question of the trial 
was touched on. 

" They say D'Alengon is very clever. He 
joleads for Filon, the culprit, to-night, does he 
not ? " 

" Yes, poor Filon — it will go hard with him. 
His crime is a black one." 

"I should think it was— implicating le petit f " 

" Dame ! the judge doesn't seem to be of your 
mind." 

" Ah — h ! " cried a florid Vandyke-bearded man, 
the dynamite bomb of the table, exploding with 
a roar of rage. "Ah — h, ere nom de Dieu I — Mes- 
sieurs les presidents are all like that ; they are 
always on the side of the innocent " 

" Till they prove them guilty." 

" Guilty ! guilty ! " the bomb exploded in earn- 
est now. " How many times in the annals of 
crime is a man guilty — really guilty "? They 
should search for the , cause — and jDunish that. 



284 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

That is true justice. Tlie instigator, the insti- 
gator — he is the true culprit. Inheritances—voiYa 
les vrais coupables. But when are such things in- 
vestigated? It is ever the innocent who are pun- 
ished. I know something of that — I do." 

"Allans — allons!" cried the table, laughing at 
the beard's vehemence. "Wlien were you ever 
under sentence "? " 

" When I was doing my duty," the beard hurled 
back with both arms in the air ; " when I was doing 
my three years — I and my comrade ; we were con- 
victed — punished — for an act of insubordination 
we never committed. Without a trial, without a 
chance of defending ourselves, we were put on 
two crumbs of bread and a glass of water for two 
months. And we were innocent — as innocent as 
babes, I tell you." 

The table was as still as death. The beard had 
proved himself worthy of this compliment ; his 
voice was the voice of drama, and his gestures such 
as every Frenchman delights in beholding and 
executing. Every ear was his, now. 

" I have no rancor. I am, by nature, what God 
made me, a peaceable man, but " — here the voice 
made a wild crescendo — " if I ever meet my colonel 
— gare d lui ! I told him so. I waited two years, 
two long years, till I was released ; then I walked 
up to him " (the beard rose here, putting his hand 
to his forehead), " I saluted " (the hand made the 
salute), " and I said to him, ' Mon colonel, you 
convicted me, on false evidence, of a crime I never 
committed. You punished me. It is two years 
since then. But I have never forgotten. Pray to 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 285 

God we may never meet in civil life, for then yours 
would end ! " 

" Allans, allons ! A man after all must do his 
duty. A colonel — he can't go into details ! " re- 
monstrated the hostess, with her knife in the air. 

" I would stick him, I tell you, as I would a i^ig- 
— or a Prussian ! I live but for that ! " 

" 3Ionstre ! " cried the table in chorus, with a 
laug-h, as it took its wine. And each turned to his 
neig-hbor to prove the beard in the wrong-. 

" Of what crime is the defendant g^uilty — he who 
is to be tried to-nig-ht % " Charm asked of a silent 
man, with sweet serious eyes and a roug-h gray 
beard, seated next her. Of all the beards at the 
table, this one alone had been content with lis. 
tening-. 

" Of fraud — mademoiselle — of fraud and for- 
gery." The man had a voice as sweet as a church 
bell, and as deep. Every word he said rang out 
slowly, sonorously. The attention of the table was 
fixed in an instant. " It is the case of a Monsieur 
Filon, of Cherbourg. He is a cider merchant. He 
has cheated the state, making false entries, etc. 
But his worst crime is that he has used as his ac- 
complice un tout petit jeune Jiomme — a lad of barely 
fifteen " 

" It is that that will make it go hard for him 
with the jury " 

" Hard ! " cried the ex-soldier, getting red at 
once with the passion of his protest — " hard — it 
ought to condemn him, to guillotine him. AVhat 
are juries for if they don't kill such rascals as 
he?" 



286 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

" Doucement, doucement, monsieur," interrupted the 
bell-note of the merchant. " One doesn't condemn 
people without hearing- both sides. There may 
be extenuating circumstances ! " 

" Yes — there are. He is a merchant. All mer- 
chants are thieves. He does as all others do— 
only he was found out." 

A protesting murmur now rose from the table, 
above which rang once more, in clear vibrations, 
the deep notes of the merchant. 

"Ah — Ji, mais — tons voleurs- -non, not all are 
thieves. Commerce conducted on such principles 
as that could not exist. Credit is not founded 
on fraud, but on trust." 

" Tres hien, tres Men," assented the table. Some 
knives were thumped to emphasize the assent. 

"As for stealing-" — the rich voice continued, 
with calm judicial slowness — " I can understand 
a man's cheating the state once, perhaps — yield- 
ing to an impulse of cupidity. But to do as ce 
Monsieur Filon has done — he must be a consum- 
mate master of his art — for his processes are or- 
ganized robbery." 

" Ah — h, but robbery against the state isn't the 
same thing as robbing- an individual," cried the 
explosive, driven into a corner. \ 

"It is quite the same — morally, only worse. 
For a man who robs the state robs everyone — in- 
cluding himself." 

"That's true — perfectly true — and very well 
put." All the heads about the table nodded ad- 
miringly ; their hostess had expressed the views 
of them all. The company was looking now at the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 287 

gray beard with glistening" eyes ; lie had proved 
himself master of the argument, and all were de- 
sirous of proving their homage. Not one of the 
nice ethical points touched on had been missed ; 
even the women had been eagerly listening, fol- 
lowing, criticising. Here was a little company 
of people gathered together from rustic France, 
meeting, perha^Ds, for the first time at this board. 
And the conversation had, from the very beginning, 
been such as one commonly expects to hear only 
among the upper ranks of metropolitan circles. 
Who would have looked to see a company of Nor- 
man xorovincials talking morality, and handling 
ethics with the skill of rhetoricians % 

Most of our fellow-diners, meanwhile, were tak- 
ing their coffee in the street. Little tables were 
ranged close to the house- wall. There was just 
room for a bench beside the table, and then the 
sidewalk ended. 

" Shall you be going to the trial to-night ? " 
courteously asked the merchant who had proven 
himself a master in debate, of Charm. He had 
lifted his hat before he sat down, bowing to her 
as if he had been in a ball-room. 

" It will be fine to-night — it is the opening of 
the defence," he added, as he placed carefully two 
lumps of sugar in his cup. 

" It's always finer at night — what with the lights 
and the people, " interpolated the landlady, from 
her perch on the door-sill. " If ces dames wish to 
go, I can show them the way to the galleries. 
Only," she added, with a warning tone, her grow- 
ing excitement obvious at the sense of the com- 



288 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

ing- pleasure, " it is like the theatre. The earlier 
we get there the better the seat. I g-o to get my 
hat." And the door swallowed her up. 

" She is right — it is like a theatre," soliloquized 
the merchant — " and so is life. Poor Filon ! " 

We should have been very content to remain 
where we were. The night had fallen ; the 
streets, as they lost themselves in dim turnings, 
in mysterious alleyways, and arches that seemed 
grotesquely high in the vague blur of things, 
were filled for us with the charm of a new and 
lovely beauty. At one end the street ended in a 
towering mass of stone ; that doubtless was the 
cathedral. At the right, the narrow houses 
dipped suddenly ; their roof-lines were lost in 
vagueness. Between the slit made by the street 
a deep, vast chasm opened ; it was the night fill- 
ing the great width of sky, and the mists that 
shrouded the hill, rising out of the sleeping earth. 
There was only one single line of light ; a long 
deep glow was banding the horizon ; it was a bit 
of flame the dusk held up, like a fading torch, to 
show where the sun had reigned. 

In and out of this dusk the townspeople came 
and went. Away from the mellow lights, stream- 
ing i3ast the open inn doors, the shapes were 
only a part of the blur; they were vague, phan- 
tasmal masses, clad in coarse draperies. As they 
passed into the circle of light, the faces showed 
features we had grown to know — the high cheek- 
bones, the ruddy tones, the deep-set, serious 
eyes, and firm mouths, with lips close to- 
gether. The air on this hill-top must be of ex- 









A STREET IX COUTANCES — EGLISE SAINT- WEKKE. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 289 

cellent txiiality; the life up here could scarcely 
be so hard as in the field villages. For the 
women looked less worn, and less hideously old, 
and in the men's eyes there was not so hard and 
miserly a glittering-. 

Almost all, young- or old, were bearing strange 
burdens. Some of the men were carrying huge 
floral crosses ; the women were laden with every 
conceivable variety of object — with candlesticks, 
vases, urns, linen sheets, rugs, with chairs even. 

" They are helping to dress the reposoirs, they 
must all be in readiness for the morning," an- 
swered our friend, still beside us, when we asked 
the cause of this astonishing spectacle. 

Everywhere garlands and firs, leaves, flowers, 
and wreaths ; people moving rapidly ; the carriers 
of the crosses stopping- to chat for an instant with 
groups working at some mysterious scaffolding — 
all shapes in darkness. Everywhere, also, there 
was the sweet, aromatic scent of the greens and 
the pines abroad in the still, clear air of the sum- 
mer night. 

This was the perfume and these the dim pict- 
ures that were our company along the narrow 
Coutances streets. 




CHAPTEE XXVI. 

A SCENE IN A NORMAN COURT. 

The court-room was briglitly 
lighted ; tlie yellow radi- 
ance on the white walls 
made the eyes blink. We 
had turned, following- our 
guide, from the gloom of 
the dim streets into the 
roomy corridors of the 
Prefecture. Even the gar- 
dens about the building 
were swarming with townspeople and peasants 
waiting for the court to open. When we entered 
it was to find the hallways and stairs blocked with 
a struggling mass of people, all eager to get seats. 
A voice that was softened to a purring note, the 
voice that goes with the pursuit of the five-franc 
piece, spoke to our landlady. "The seats to be 
reserved in the tribune were for these ladies 1 " 

No time had been lost, you perceive. We were 
strangers ; the courtesies of the town were to be 
extended to us. We were to have of their best, 
here in Coutances ; and their best, just now, was 
this mise-en -scene in their court-room. 

The stage was well set. The Frenchman's in- 
stinctive sense of fitness was obvious in the ar- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 291 

rangements. Long- lines of blue drapery from 
the tall windows broug-lit the groups below into 
high relief ; the scarlet of the judges' robes was 
doubly impressive against this background. The 
lawyers, in their flowing' black gowns and white 
ties, gained added dignit}^ from the marine note 
behind them. The bluish pallor of the walls made 
the accused and the group about him pathetically 
sombre. Each one of this little group w^as in black. 
The accused himself, a sharp, shrewd, too keen-eyed 
man of thirty or so, might have been following a 
corpse — so black was his raiment. Even the youth 
beside him, a dull, sodden-eyed lad, with an air of 
being here not on his own account, but because 
he had been forced to come, was clad in deepest 
mourning. By the side of the culprit sat the one 
really tragic figure in all the court — the culprit's 
wife. She also was in black. In happier times 
she must have been a fair, fresh-colored blonde. 
Now all the color was gone from her cheek. She 
was as pale as death, and in her sweet downcast 
eyes there were the tell-tale vig-ils of long nights 
of weeping. Beside her sat an elderly man who 
bent over her, talking, whispering, commenting as 
the trial went on. 

Every eye in the tribune was fixed on the slim 
young figure. A iDassing glance sufficed, as a rule, 
for the culprit and his accomplice ; but it was 
on the wife that all the quick French sympathy, 
that volubly spoke itself out, was lavished. The 
blouses and peasants' caps, the tradesmen and their 
wives crowded close about the railing to pass their 
comment. 



292 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

" Slie looks far more guilty tlian lie," muttered 
a wizened old man next to us, very crooked on his 
three-legged stool. 

" Yes," warmly added a stout cajDped peasant, 
with a basket once on her arm, now serving as a 
pedestal to raise the higher above the others her 
own curiosity. " Yes — she has her modesty — too 
— to speak for her " 

" Bah — all put on — to soften the jury." It was 
our fiery one of the table d'hote who had wedged 
his way toward us. 

" And why not ? A woman must make use of 
what weapons she has at hand " 

" Silence ! Silence ! messieurs ! " The huissier 
brought down his staff of office with a ring. The 
clatter of sabots over the wooden floor of the tri- 
bune and the loud talking were disturbing the 
court. 

This French court, as a court, sat in strange 
fashion, it seemed to us. The bench was on 
wonderfully friendly terms with the table about 
which the clerks sat, with the lawyers, with the 
foreman of the jury, with even the huissier s. Mon- 
sieur le President was in his robes, but he wore 
them as negligently as he did the dignity of hi^ 
office. He and the lawyer for the defence,'a noted 
Coutances orator, openly wrangled; the latter, in- 
deed, took little or no pains to show him respect ; 
now they joked together, next a retort flashed 
forth which began a quarrel, and the court and 
the trial looked on as both struggled for a mastery 
in the art of personal abuse. The law^yer made 
nothing of raising his finger, to shake it in open 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 293 

menace in the very teeth of the scarlet robes. And 
the robes clad a purple-faced figure that retorted 
angrily, like a fighting school-boy. 

But to Coutances, this, it appears, was a proper 
way for a court to sit. 

"Ah, D'Alengon — il est fort, lui. C'est lui qui agace 
toujours monsieiLT le ^yresident " 

" He'll win — he'll make a great speech — he is 
never really fine unless it's a question of life or 

death " Such were the criticisms that were 

poured out from the quick-speaking lix)s about us. 

Presently a simultaneous movement on the part 
of the jury brought the proceedings to confusion. 
A witness in the act of giving evidence stopped 
short in his sentence ; he twisted his head ; look- 
ing upward, he asked a question of the foreman, 
and the latter nodded, as if assenting. The judge 
then looked up. All the court looked up. All 
the heads were twisted. Something obviously 
was wrong. Then, presently the concierge ap- 
peared with a huge bunch of keys. 

And all the court waited in perfect stillness — 
while the windows were being closed ! 

"II y avait un courant d'air — there was a 
draught," — gravely announced the crooked man, 
as he rose to let the concierge pass. This latter 
had her views of a court so susceptible to whiffs 
of night air. 

" Ces messieurs are delicate — pity they have to be 
out at night ! " — whereat the tribune snickered. 

All went on bravely for a good half -hour. More 
witnesses were called ; each answered with won- 
derful aptness, ease, and clearness ; none were 



294 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

confused or timid; these were not men to be 
the playthings of others who made tortuous 
cross-questionings their trade. They, also, were 
Frenchmen ; they knew how to speak. The judge 
and the Coutances lawyer continued their jokes 
and their squabblings. And still only the poor 
wife hung her head 

Then all at once the judge began to mop his 
brow. The jury, to a man, mopj^ed theirs. The 
witnesses and lawyers each brought forth their 
big silk handkerchiefs. All the court was wiping 
its brow. 

" It's the heat," cried the judge. " Huissier, call 
the concierge; tell her to open the windows." 

The concierge reappeared. Flushed this time, 
and with anger in her eye. She jDushed her way 
through the crowd ; she took not the least pains 
in the world to conceal her opinion of a court as 
variable as this one. 

" All mais, this is too much ! if the jury doesn't 
know its mind better than this ! "—and in the fury 
of her wrath she well-nigh upset the crooked little 
old gentleman and his three-legged stool. 

" That's right — that's right. I'm not a fine lady,^ 
tip me over. You open and shut me as if I were 
a bureau drawer ; continuez — continuez '-" 

The concierge had reached the windows now. 
She was opening and slamming them in the face 
of the judge, the jury, and messieurs les huissier s, 
with unabashed violence. The court, except for 
that one figure in sombre draperies, being men, 
suffered this violence as only men bear with a 
woman in a temper. With the letting in of the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 295 

fresh air, fresh energy in the prosecution mani- 
fested itself. The witnesses were being- sub- 
jected to inquisitorial torture ; their answers 
were still glib, but the faces were studies of the 
passions held in the leash of self-control. Not 
twenty minutes had ticked their beat of time 
when once more the jury, to a man, showed signs 
of shivering. Half a dozen gravely took out their 
pocket-handkerchiefs, and as gravely covered their 
heads. Others knotted the square of linen, thus 
making a closer head-gear. The judge turned un- 
easily in his own chair ; he gave a furtive glance 
at the still open windows; as he did so he caught 
sight of his jury thus ]oatiently suffering. The 
spectacle went to his heart; these gentlemen were 
again in a draught ■? Where was the concierge ? 
Then the kuissier whispered in the judge's ear; 
no one heard, but everyone divined the whisper. 
It was to remind monsieur le president that the 
concierge was in a temper ; would it not be bet- 
ter for him, the kuissier, to close the windows? 
Without a smile the judge bent his head, assent- 
ing. And once more all proceedings were at a 
standstill ; the court was patiently waiting, once 
more, for the windows to be closed. 

Now, in all this, no one, not even the wizened 
old man who was obviously the humorist of the 
tribune, had seen anything farcical. To be too 
hot — to be too cold ! this is a serious matter in 
France. A jury surely has a right to protect itself 
against cold, against la migraine, and the devils of 
rheumatism and pleurisy. There is nothing ridic- 
ulous in twelve men sitting in judgment on a fel- 



296 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

low-man, with their handkerchiefs covering- their 
bare heads. Nor of a judge who gallantly remem- 
bers the temper of a concierge. Nor of a whole 
court sitting in silence, while the windows are 
opened and closed. There was nothing in all this 
to tickle the play of French humor. But then, we 
remembered, France is not the land of humorists, 
but of wits. Monsieur d'Alengon down yonder, as 
he rises from his chair to address the judge and 
jury, will prove to you and me, in the next two 
hours, how great an orator a Frenchman can be, 
without trenching an inch on the humorist's 
ground. 

The court-room was so still now that you could 
have heard the fall of a pin. 

At last the great moment had come — the mo- 
ment and the man. There is nothing in life 
Frenchmen love better than a good speech — un 
discours ; and to have the same pitched in the 
dramatic key, with a tragic result hanging on the 
eiiects of the pleading, this is the very climax of 
enjoyment. To a Norman, oratory is not second, 
but first, nature ; all the men of this j)rovince have 
inherited the gift of a facile eloquence. But this 
Monsieur d'Alengon, the crooked man whispered, 
in hurried explanation, he was un fameux — even 
the Paris courts had to send for him when they 
wanted a great orator. 

The famous lawyer understood the alphabet of 
his calling. He knew the value of effect. He 
threw himself at once into the orator's pose. His 
gown took sculptural lines ; his arms were waved 
majestically, as arms that were conscious of hav- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 297 

ing" great sleeves to accentuate the lines of gest- 
ure. 

Then he began to speak. The voice was soft ; at 
first one was chiefly conscious of the music in its 
cadences. But as it warmed and grew with the 
ardor of the words, the room was filled with such 
vibrations as usually come only with the sounding 
of rich wind-instruments. With such a voice a 
man could do anything. D'Alengon played with 
it as a man plays with a power he has both trained 
and conquered. It was firmly modulated, with 
no accent of sympathy when he opened his plea 
for his client. It warmed slightly when he indig- 
nantly repelled the charges brought against the 
latter. It took the cadence of a lover when he 
pointed to the young wife's figure and asked if it 
were likely a husband could be guilty of such 
crimes, year after year, with such a woman as that 
beside him ? It was tenderly explanatory as he 
went on enlarging on the young wife's perfections, 
on her character, so Avell known to them all here 
in Coutances, on the influence she had given the 
home-life yonder in Cherbourg. Even the chil- 
dren were not forgotten, as an aid to incidental 
testimony. Was it even conceivable a father of a 
young family would lead an innocent lad into 
error, fraud, and theft ? 

" It is he who knows how to touch the heart ! " 

" Qiiel beau moment ! " cried the wizened man, in 
a transport. 

" See — the jury weep ! " 

All the court was in tears, even monsieur le 
president sniffled, and yet there was no draught. 



298 THREE NORM AND 7 INNS. 

As for the peasant women and the shop keepers, 
they could not have been more moved if the cul- 
prit had been a blood-relation. How they en- 
joyed their tears ! What a delight it was to thus 
thrill and shiver! The wife was sobbing- now, 
with her head on her uncle's shoulder. And the 
culprit was acting his part, also, to perfection. 
He had been firmly stoical until now. But at this 
parade of his wife's virtues he broke down, his 
head was bowed at last. It was all the tribune 
could do to keep its applause from breaking forth. 
It was such a perfect performance ! it was as good 
as the theatre — far better— for this was real — this 
play — with a man's whole future at stake ! 

Until midnight the lawyer held all in the town 
in a trance. He ended at last Avith a Ciceronian, 
declamatory outburst. A great buzz of applause 
welled up from the court. The tribune was in 
transports; such a magnificent harangue he had 
not given them in years. It was one of his great- 
est victories. 

" And his victories, madame, they are the vic- 
tories of all Coutances." 

The crooked man almost stood upright in the \ 
excitement of his enthusiasm. Great drops of I 
sweat were on his wrinkled old brow. The -even- 
ing had been a great event in his life, as his 
twisted frame, all a-tremble with pleasurable ela- 
tion, exultingly proved. The women's caps were 
closer together than ever ; they were i^ressing in 
a solid mass close to the railing of the tribune to 
gain one last look at the figure of the wife. 

" It is she who will not sleep " 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 299 

" Poor soul, are lier children with her ? " 

" No — and no women either. There is only the 
uncle." 

■' He is a good man, he will comfort her ! " 

" Faut prier le hon Dieu ! " 

At the court-room door there was a last glimpse 
of the stricken figure. She disappeared into the 
blackness of the night, bent and feeble, leaning 
with pitiful attempt at dignity on the uncle's arm. 
With the dawn she would learn her husband's fate. 
The jury would be out all night. 

" You see, madame, it is she who must really 
suffer in the end." We were also walking into 
the night, through the bushes of the garden, to 
the dark of the streets. Our landlady was guid- 
ing us, and talking volubly. She was still under 
the influence of the past hour's excitement. Her 
voice trembled audibly, and she was walking with 
brisk strides through the dim streets. 

" If Filon is condemned, what would happen to 
them "? " 

" Oh, he would pass a few years in prison — not 
many. The jury is always easy on the rich. But 
his future is ruined. They — the family — would 
have to go away. But even then, rumor would 
follow them. It travels far nowadays — it has a 
thousand legs, as they say here. Wherever they 
go they will be known. But Monsieur d'Alengou, 
what did you think of him, hein ? There's a great 
man — what an orator! One must go as far as 
Paris — to the theatre ; one must hear a great play 
— and even there, when does an actor make you 
weep as he did ? Henri, he was superb. I tell 



300 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

you, superb ! d'une eloquence ! " And to her hus- 
band, when we reached the inn door, our viva- 
cious landlady was still narrating the chief points 
of the speech as we crawled wearily up to our 
beds. 

It was early the next morning- when we descend- 
ed into the inn dining-room. The lawyer's elo- 
quence had interfered with our rest. Coffee and 
a bite of fresh air were best taken together, we 
agreed. Before the coffee came the news of the 
culprit's fate. Most of the inn establishment had 
been sent to court to learn the jury's verdict. 
Madame confessed to a sleepless night. The 
thought of that poor wife had haunted her pillow. 
She had deemed it best — but just to us all, in a 
word, to despatch Auguste — the one inn waiter, to 
hear the verdict. Tiens, there he was now, turn- 
ing the street corner. 

" II est acquitte ! " rang through the streets. 

" He is acquitted — he is acquitted ! Le hoii Dieu 
soit loue ! Henri — Ernest — Monsieur Terier, he 
is acquitted— he is acquitted ! I tell you ! " 

The cry rang through the house. Our landlady 
was shouting the news out of doors, through win-\ 
dows, to the passers-by, to the very dogs as they 
ran. But the townspeople needed no summon- 
ing. The windows were crowded full of eager 
heads, all asking the same question at once. A 
company of peasants coming up from the fields 
for breakfast stopped to hear the glad tidings. 
The shop-keepers all the length of the street 
gathered to join them. Everyone was talking at 
once. Every shade of opinion was aired in the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 301 

morning sun. On one subject alone there was a 
universal agreement. 

" What g-ood news for the poor wife ! " 
"And what a night she must have passed ! " 
All this sympathy and interest, be it remem- 
bered, was for one they barely knew. To be the 
niece of a Coutances uncle — this was enough, it 
appears, for the good loeople of this cathedral 
city, to insure the flow of their tears and the gift 
of their larayers. 



CHAPTEE XXVII. 



THE FETE-DIEU — A JUNE CHEISTMAS. 






m ^ 




When we stepped fortli into 
the streets, it was to find a 
flower - strewn city. The 
paving-stones were covered 
with the needles of pines, 
with fir-boughs, witli rose- 
leaves, lily stocks, and with 
the petals of flock and cle- 
matis. One's feet sank into 
the odorous carpet as in the 
thick wool of an Oriental prayer-rug. To tread 
upon this verdure was to crush out perfume. Yet 
the fragrance had a solemn flavor. There was a 
touch of consecration in the very aroma of the 
fir- sap. 

Never was there a town so given over to its\ 
festival. Everything else — all trade, commerce, 
occupation, work, or pleasure even, was at -a dead 
standstill. In all the city there was but one 
thought, one object, one end in view. This was 
the great day of the Fete-Dieu. To this blessed 
feast of the Sacrament the townspeople had been 
looking forward for weeks. 

It is their June Christmas. The great day 
brings families together. 



THREE NOmiANDY INNS. 303 

From all the country round the farm wagons liad 
been climbing the hill for hours. The peasants 
were in holiday dress. Gold crosses and amber 
beads encircled leathery old necks ; the gossamer 
caps, real Normandy caps at last, crowned heads 
held erect to-day, with the pride of those who had 
come to town clad in their best. Even the younger 
women were in true peasant garb ; there was a 
touch of a ribbon, brilliant red and blue stockings, 
and the sparkle of silver shoe-buckles and gold 
necklaces to jDrove they had donned their finery 
in honor of the fete. The men wore their blue 
and pur^ole blouses over their holiday suits; but 
almost all had pinned a sprig of bright geranium 
or honeysuckle to brighten up the shiny cotton 
of the preservative blouse. Even the children car- 
ried bouquets ; and thus many of the farm wagons 
were as gay as the streets. 

No, gay is not the word. Neither the city nor 
the streets were really gay. The city, as a city, 
was too dead in earnest, too absorbed, too intent, 
to indulge in gayety. It was the greatest of all 
the days of the year in Coutances. In the cli- 
maxic moments of life, one is solemn, not gay. 
It was not only the greatest, but the busiest, day 
of the year for this cathedral town. Here was a 
whole city to deck ; every street, every alleyway 
must be as beautiful as a church on a feast-day. 
The city, in truth, must be changed from a bust- 
ling, trading, commercial entrepot into an altar. 
And this altar must be beautiful — as beautiful, 
as ingeniously picturesque as only the French 
instinct for beauty could make it. 



304 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

Think you, witli siicli a task on hand, this city- 
ful of artists had time for frivolous idling ? Since 
dawn these artists had been scrubbing- their 
doors, washing windows, and sluicing the gutters. 
One is not a provincial for nothing ; one is hon- 
est in the provinces ; one does not drape finery 
over a filthy frame. The city was washed first, 
before it was adorned. 

Opposite, across from our inn door-sill, where 
we lingered a moment before we began our jour- 
ney throug'h the streets, we could see for our- 
selves how thorough was this cleansing. A shop- 
keeper and his wife were each mounted on a 
step-ladder. One washed the inside and the other 
the outside of the low shop -windows. They were 
in the greatest possible haste, for they were late 
in their preparations. In two hours the proces- 
sion was to loass. Their neighbors stopped to cry 
up to them : 

" Tendez-vous, auJourd'Jmi ? " It is the universal 
question, heard everywhere. 

" 3Icds Old" croaked out the man, his voice 
sounding like the croak of a rook, from the height 
from which he spoke. " Only we are late, you\ 
see." 

It was his wife who was taking the question to 
heart. She saw in it just cause for affront. 

" Ah, those Espergnons, they're always on time, 
they are ; they had their hangings out a week 
ago, and now they are as filthy as wash -rags. No 
wonder they have time to walk the streets ! " and 
the indignant dame gave her window-pane an 
extra polish. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 305 

" Here, Leon, catch liold, I'm ready now ! " 
The woman was holding- out one end of a long, 
snowy sheet. Leon meekly took his end ; both 
hooked the stuff to some rings ready to secure the 
hanging ; the fagade of the little house was soon 
hidden behind the white fall of the family linen ; 
and presently Leon and his wife beg-an ver}^ g-ravely 
to pin tiny sprigs of purple clematis across the 
white surface. This latter decoration was per- 
formed with the sure touch of artists. No mediae- 
val designer of tapestry could have chosen, with 
more secure selection, the precise points of dis- 
tance at which to place the bouquets ; nor could the 
tones and tints of the greens and purples, and the 
velvet of the occasional heartsease, sparsely used, 
have been more correctly combined. When the task 
was ended, the commonplace house was a palace 
wall, hung' with the sheen of fine linen, on which 
bloomed geometric figures beautifully spaced. 

All the city was thus draped. One walked 
through long walls of snow, in which flowers 
grew. Sometimes the floral decorations expand- 
ed from the more common sprig into wreaths and 
garlands. Here and there the Coutances fancy 
worked itself out in fleur-de-lis emblems or in ar- 
morial bearings. But everywhere an astonishing, 
instinctive sense of beauty, a knowledge of pro- 
portion, and a natural sense for color were ob- 
vious. There was not, in all the town, a single of- 
fence committed against taste. Is it any wonder, 
with such an heredity at their fingers' ends, that 
the provinces feed Paris, and that Paris sets the 
fashions in beauty for the rest of the world ? 



306 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

Come with us, and look upon this open-air 
chapeL It stands in the open street, in front of 
an old house of imposing- aspect. The two com- 
monplace-looking- women who are putting the 
finishing touches to this beautiful creation tell us 
it is the reposoir of Madame la Baronne. They 
have been working- on it since the day before. In 
the night the miracle was finished — nearly — they 
were so weary they had gone to bed at dawn. 
They do not tell you it is a miracle. They think 
it fine, oh, yes — " cest beau — Madame la Baronne 
always has the most beautiful of all the reposoirs," 
but then they have decked these altars since they 
were born ; their grandmothers built them before 
ever they saw the light. For always in Coutances 
"on la fete beaucoup ; " this feast of the Sacrament 
has been a great day in Coutances for centuries 
past. But although they are so used to it, these 
natural architects love the day. " It's so fine to 
see — si beau a voir — all the reposoirs, and the 
children and the fine ladies walking through the 
streets, and then, all kneeling- when Monseigneur 
I'Archeveque prays. Ah yes, it is a fine sight." 
They nod, and smile, and then they turn to light h, 
taper, and to consult about the placing of a certain' 
vase from out of which an Easter lily towers. 

At the foot of these miniature altars trees had 
been planted. Gardens had also been laid out; 
the parterres were as gravely watered as if they 
were to remain in the middle of a bustling high 
street in perpetuity. Steps lead uj) to the altar. 
These were covered with rugs and carpets ; for the 
feet of the bishop must tread only on velvet and 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 307 

flowers. Candelabra, vases, banners, crosses, cru- 
cifixes, flowers, and tall thin tapers — all the altars 
were crowded with such adornments. Human 
vanity and the love of surpassing* one's neighbors, 
these also figured conspicuously among- the thing's 
the fitfully shining- sun looks down upon. But 
what a charm there is in such a contest ! Surely 
the desire to beautify the spot on which the 
Blessed Sacrament rests — this is only another 
way of professing one's adoration. 

As we passed throug-h the streets a multitude of 
pictures crowded upon the eyes. In an archway 
g-roups of young- first communicants were forming ; 
they were on their way to the cathedral. Their 
white veils against the gloom of the recessed 
archways were like sunlit clouds caught in an 
abyss. Priests in gorgeous vestments were walk- 
ing quickly through the streets. All the peasants 
were going also toward the cathedral. A group 
stopped, as did we, to turn into a side-street. For 
there was a picture we should not see later on. 
Between some lovely old turrets, down from con- 
vent walls a group of nuns fluttered tremulously ; 
they were putting the last touches to the reposoir 
of their own Sacre Coeur. Some were carrying 
huge gilt crosses, staggering as they walked ; 
others were on tiptoe filling the tall vases ; 
others were on their knees, patting into perfect 
smoothness the turf laid about the altar steps. 
There was an old cure among them and a young 
carpenter whom the cure was directing. Every- 
one of the nuns had her black skirts tucked up ; 
their stout shoes must be free to fly over the 



308 THREE NORMANDT INNS. 

ground with the swiftness of hounds. How pretty 
the faces were, under the great caps, in that 
moment of unwonted excitement ! The cheeks, 
even of the older nuns, were pink ; it was a pink 
that made their habitual pallor have a dazzling- 
beauty. The eyes were lighted into a fresh flame 
of life, and the lips were temptingly crimson ; 
they were only women, after all, these nuns, and 
once a year at least this feast of the Sacrament 
brings all their feminine activities into play. 

Still we moved on, for within the cathedral 
the procession had not yet formed. There was 
still time to make a tour of the town. 

To plunge into the side-streets away from the 
v^ide cathedral parvis,was to be confronted with a 
strange calm. These narrow thoroughfares had 
the stillness which broods over all ancient cities' 
by-ways. Here was no festival bustle ; all was 
grave and sad. The only dwellers left in the an- 
tique fifteenth century houses were those who 
must remain at home till a still smaller house 
holds them. We passed several aged Coutangais 
couples. By twos they were seated at the low 
windows ; they had been dressed and then left j 
they were sitting here, in the i^athetic patience of 
old age ; they were hoping something of -the fete 
might come their way. Two women, in one of 
the low interiors, were more philosophic than 
their neighbors ; if their stiffened knees would not 
carry them to the fete, at least their gnarled old 
hands could hold a pack of cards. They were 
seated close to the open casement, facing each 
other across a small round table ; along the win- 
dow-sill there were rows of flower-pots ; a pewter 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 309 

tankard was set between them ; and out of tlae 
shadowy interior came the topaz gleam of the 
Normandy brasses, the huge bed, with its snowy 
draperies, the great chests, and the flowery chintz- 
frill defining- the width of the yawning fireplace. 
The two old faces, with the strong features, deep 
wrinkles, sunken mouths, and bald heads tied up 
in dazzling white coifs, were in full relief against 
the dim background. They were as motionless as 
statues ; neither looked up as our footfall struck 
along the cobbles ; it was an exciting moment in 
the game. 

Below these old houses stretched the public 
gardens. Here also there was a great stillness. 
For us alone the rose gardens bloomed, the tropi- 
cal trees were shivering, and the palms were 
making a night of shade for wide acres of turf. 
Rarely does a city boast of such a garden. It was 
no surprise to learn, later, that these lovely jDaths 
and noble terraces had been the slow achievement 
of a lover of landscape gardening, one who, dj^- 
ing, had given this, his master-piece, to his native 
town. 

There is no better place from which to view the 
beautiful city. From the horizontal lines of the 
broad terraces flows the great sweep of the hill- 
side ; it takes a swift precipitous plunge, and rests 
below in wide stretches of meadow. The garden 
itself seemed, by virtue of this encompassing cir- 
cle of green, to be only a more exquisitely culti- 
vated portion of the lovely outlying hills and 
wooded depths. The cows, grazing below in the 
valleys, were whisking their tails, and from the 
farm-yards came the crow of the chanticleer. 



310 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

One turned to look upward — to follow heaven- 
ward the soaring glory of the cathedral towers. 
From the plane of the streets their geometric per- 
fection had made their lines seem cold. Through 
this aerial perspective the eye followed, enrapt- 
ured, the perfect Gothic of the spires and the 
lower central tower. The great nave roof and 
the choir lifted themselves above the turrets 
and the tiled house-tops of the city, as gray 
mountains of stone rise above the huts of pyg- 
mies. Coutances does well to be proud of its ca- 
thedral. 

The sound of a footstep, crunching the gravel 
of the garden- walk, caused us to turn. It was to 
find, face to face, the hero of the night before ; the 
celebrated Coutances lawyer was also taking his 
constitutional. But not alone, some friends were 
with him, come up to town doubtless for the fete 
or the trial. He was showing them his city. He 
stretched a hand forth, with the same magisterial 
gesture of the night before, to point out the glory 
of the prospect lying below the terrace. He 
faced the cathedral towers, explaining the points 
of their perfection. And then, for he was a French- 
man, he ]perceived the i^resence of two ladies. In 
an instant his hat was raised, and as quickly his 
eyes told us he had seen us before, in the court- 
room. The bow was the lower because of this re- 
cognition, and the salute was accompanied by a 
grave smile. 

Manners in the jorovinces are still good, you 
perceive — if only you are far enough away from 
Paris. 



THREE NORMANDT INNS. 311 

Someone else also bestowed on us the courtesy 
of a passing- greeting". It was a cure who was 
saying- his Ave, as he paced slowly, in the sun, up 
and down the yew path. He was old; one leg 
was already tired of life^t must be dragged pain- 
fully along, w^hen one walked in the sun. The cure 
himself was not in the least tired of life. His 
smile was as warm as the sun as he lifted his 
calotte. 

" Surely, mesdames, you will not miss the fete ? 
It must be forming now." 

He had taken an old man's, and a priest's, privi- 
lege. We were all three looking down into the 
valley, which lay below, a pool of freshness. He 
had spoken, first of the beauty of the prospect, 
and then of the great day. To be young and 
still strong, to be able to follow the procession 
from street to street, and yet to be lingering here 
among the roses! — this passed the simple cure's 
comprehension. The reproach in his mild old 
eyes was quickly changed to ajoproval, however ; 
for upon the announcement that the procession 
was already in motion we started, bidding him a 
hurried adieu. 

The huge cathedral portals yawned at the top 
of the hill ; they were like a gaping chasm. The 
great place of the cathedral square was half 
filled^ a part of the procession had passed already 
beyond the gloom of the vast aisles into the frank 
openness of day. Winding in and out of the 
white -hung streets a long line of figures was 
marching ; part of the line had reached the first 
reposoir, and gradually the swaying of the heads 



312 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

was slackening-, as, by twos and twos, the figures 
stopped. 

Still, from between the cathedral doors an un- 
ending- multitude of joeople kept pouring forth 
upon the cathedral square. Now it was an inter- 
minable line of young girls, first communicants, 
in their white veils and gowns ; against the grays 
and browns of the cathedral facade this mass 
of snow was of startling j)urity — a great white 
rose of light. Closely following the dazzling line 
marched a grave company of nuns ; with their 
black robes sweeping the flower-strewn streets, 
the iDallor of their faces, and the white wings of 
their huge coifs, they might have been so many 
marble statues moving with slow, automatic step, 
repeating in life the statues in stone above their 
heads, incarnations of meek renunciation. With 
the free and joj'^ous step of a vigorous youth not 
yet tamed to complete self-obliteration, next there 
stepped forth into the sun a group of seminarists. 
In the lace and scarlet of their bright robes they 
were like unto so many young kings. High in the 
summer air they swung their golden censers ; from 
huge baskets, heaped with flowers, they scatteredx 
flowers as they swayed, in the grace of their youth, 
from side to side, with priestly rhythmic motion. 

In the days of Greece, under the Attic tent of 
sky, it was Jove that was thus worshipped ; here 
in Coutances, under the paler, less ardent blue 
of France, it was the Christian God these youths 
were honoring. So men have continued to scat- 
ter flowers ; to swing incense ; to bend the knee ; 
surely in all ages the long homage of men, like the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 313 

procession here before us, has been but this — the 
long-ing to worship the Invisible, and to make the 
act one with beautj^ 

Is it Greek, is it Christian, this festival ? If it 
be Catholic, it is also pagan. It is as composite a 
union of religious ceremonials as man is himself 
an aggregate of lost types, for there is a subtle 
law of repetition which governs both men and 
ceremonials. 

How pagan was the color! how Greek the sense 
of beauty that lies in contrasts ! how Jewish the 
splendor of the priestly vestments as the gold and 
silver tissues gleamed in the sun ! How mediaeval 
this survival of an old miracle play ! 

See this groui^ of children, half-frightened, 
half-proud, wandering from side to side as chil- 
dren unused to walking soberly ever march. They 
were following the leadership of a huge Suisse. 
This latter was magnificently apparelled. He 
carried a great mace, and this he swung high in 
the air. The children, little John the Baptist, 
Christ, Mary the Mother, and Magdalen, were 
magnetized by his mighty skill. They were 
looking at the golden stick ; they were thinking 
only of how high he, this splendid giant who ter- 
rified them so, would throw it the next time, and 
if he would always surely catch it. The small 
Virgin, in her long brown robes, tripped as she 
walked. The cherubic John the Baptist, with 
only his sheepskin and his cross, shivered as he 
stumbled after her. 

" At least they might have covered his arms, le 
2)auvre petit," one stout peasant among the bystand- 



314 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

ers was Cliristian enoiigli to mutter, " Poor little 
John ! " Even in summer the sun is none too hot 
on this hill-toi3 ; and a sheepskin is a garment one 
must be used to, it appears. Christ, himself, was 
no better off. He was wearing" his crown of thorns, 
but he had only his night-dress, bound with a 
girdle, to keep his naked little body warm. An 
angel, in gossamer wings and a huge rose-wreath, 
being of the other sex, had her innate woman's 
love of finery to make her oblivious to the light 
sting of the wind, as it passed through her draper- 
ies. As this group in the procession moved 
slowly along, the city took on a curiously antique 
aspect. In every lattice window a head was 
framed. The lines of the townspeople pressed 
closer and closer; they made a serried mass of 
blouses and caps, of shiny coats and bared heads. 
The very houses seemed to recognize that a i^art 
of their own youth was passing them by ; these 
were the figures they had looked out upon, time 
after time, in the old fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
tury days, when the great miracle plays drew the 
country around, for miles and miles, to this Cou- 
tances square. 

Across the square, in the long gray distance of 
the streets, the archbishop's canopy was m'otion- 
less. A sweet groaning murmur rii^pled from lip 
to lip. 

Then a swift and mighty rustling filled the air, 
for the bones of thousands of knees were striking 
the stones of the street ; — even heretic knees were 
bent when the Host was lifted. It was the moment 
of silent prayer. It was also, perhaps, the most 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 315 

beautiful, it was assuredly the most consum- 
mately picturesque moment of tlie da3^ The bent 
heads ; the long vistas of kneeling- figures ; the 
lovely contrasts of the flowing draperies ; the 
trailing splendor of the priests' robes dying into 
the black note made by the nuns' sombre skirts ; 
the gossamer brilliance of the hundreds of white 
veils, through which the young rapture of relig- 
ious awe on lips and brow made even common- 
place features beautiful ; the choristers' scarlet 
petticoats ; the culminating note of splendor, the 
Archbishop, throned like some antique scriptural 
king under the feathers and velvets of his crimson 
canopy ; then the long lines of the townspeople with 
the groups of peasants beside them, whose well- 
sunned skins made even their complexion seem 
pale by the side of cheeks that brought the burn 
of noon-suns in the valleys to mind; and behind 
this wall of kneeling figures, those other walls, 
the long white-hung house facades, with their 
pendent sprigs and wreaths and garlands above 
which hung the frieze of human heads beneath 
the carved cornices ; surelj^ this was indeed the 
culminating moment, both in point of beauty and 
in impressiveness, of the great day's festival. 

Thus was reposoir after reposoir visited. Again 
and again the multitude was on its knees. Again 
and again the Host was lifted. And still we 
followed. Sometimes all the line was in full 
light, a long perspective of color and of pris- 
matic radiance. And then the line would be lost ; 
some part of it was still in a side-street ; and 
the rest were singing along the edges of the 



316 THREE NOBMANDT INNS. 

city's ramparts, under the great branches of the 
trees. Here, in the gray of the narrow streets, 
the choristers' gowns were startling in their rich- 
ness. Yonder, in full sunlight, the brightness on 
the maidens' robes made the shadows in their 
white skirts as blue as light caught in a grotto's 
depth. 

Still they sang. In the dim streets or under 
the trees, where the gay banners were still flut- 
tering, and the white veils, like airy sails, were 
bulging in the wind, the hymn went on. It was 
thin and pathetically weak in the mouths of the 
babes that walked. It was clear, as fresh and pure 
as a brooklet's ripple, from the mouths of the 
young communicants. It was of firm contralto 
strength from the throats of the grave nuns. The 
notes gained and gained in richness ; the hymn 
was almost a chant with the priests ; and in the 
mouths of the people it was as a ringing chorus. 
Together with the swelling music swung the in- 
cense into high air; and to the Host the rose- 
leaves were flung. 

Still we followed. Still the long line moved 
on from altar to altar. 

Then, when the noon was long past, wearily we 
climbed upward to our inn. 

In the high streets there was much going to 
and fro. The shop-keepers already were taking 
down their linen. Pouffe ! Pouffe ! there was 
much blowing through mouths and a great stand- 
ing on tiptoes to reach the tall tapers on the 
reposoirs. 

Coutances was pious. Coutances was proud of 



THREE NOBMANDT INNS. 317 

its fete. But Coutances was also a thrifty city. 
Once the cortege had passed, it was high time to 
snuff out the tapers. Who could stand by and see 
g-ood candles blowing- uselessly in the wind, and 
one's money going- along with the dripping "? 




CHAPTEE XXVm. 

BY LAND TO MONT ST. MICHEL. 

Two hours later the usual 
collection of forces was as- 
sembled in our inn court- 
yard ; for a question of im- 
portance was to be decided. 
Madame was there — chief 
of the council ; her hus- 
band was also x^resent, be- 
cause he mig"ht be useful in case any dispute 
as to madame's word came up ; Aug-uste, the 
one inn waiter, was an important figure of the 
group ; for he, of them all, was the really travelled 
one ; he had seen the world— he was to be counted 
on as to distances and routes ; and above, from the 
upper windows, the two ladies of the bed-chamber 
looked down, to act as chorus to the brisk dia- 
logue going on between madame and the owner 
of a certain victoria for which we were in treaity. 

" Ces dames," madame said, with a shrug which 
was meant for the coachman, and a smile which 
was her gift to us — ■" these ladies wish to go to 
Mont St. Michel, to drive there. Have you your 
little victoria and Poulette ? " 

Now, by the shrug" madame had conveyed to the 
man and the assembled household generally, her 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 319 

own great scorn of us, and of our plans. What a 
whim this, of driving", forsooth, to the Mont ! 
Dieu salt — French people were not given to any 
such follies ; they were serious-minded, always, in 
matters of travel. To travel at all, was no light 
thing; one made one's will and took an honest 
and tearful farewell of one's family, when one 
went on a journey. But these English, these 
Americans, there's no foretelling to what point 
their folly will make them tempt fate ! However, 
madame was one who knew on which side her 
bread was buttered, if ever a woman did, and the 
continuance of these mad follies helped to butter 
her own French roll. And so her shrug and wink 
conveyed to the tall Norman just how much these 
particular lunatics before them would be willing 
to pay for this their whim. 

" Have you Poulette ? " 

" Yes — yes — Poulette is at home. I have made 
her repose herself all day — hearing these ladies 
had spoken of driving to the Mont " 

Chorus from the upper window-sills. " The 
poor beast ! it isjoliment longiie — la distance." 

" As these ladies observe," continued the owner 
of the doomed animal, not raising his head, but 
quickly acting on the hint, "it is long, the dis- 
tance — one does not go for nothing." And though 
the man kept his mouth from betraying him, his 
keen eyes glittered with avarice. 

" And then — ces dames must descend at Genets, 
to cross the greve, tu sais" interpolated the waiter, 
excitedly changing his napkin, his wand of office, 
from one armpit to the other. The thought of 



320 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

travel stirred his blood. It was fine — to start off 
thus, without having" to make the necessary ar- 
rangements for a winter's service or a summer's 
season. And to drive, that would be new — yes 
that would be a chan.g-e indeed from the stuffy 
third-class compartments. For Auguste, you see, 
approved of us and of the foolishness of our plans. 
His sympathy being" gratis, was allied to the pro- 
tective instinct — he would see the cheating- was at 
least as honestly done as was compatible with 
French methods. 

" Another carriag-e — and why ? " we meekly quer- 
ied, warned by this friendly hint. A chorus now 
arose from the entire audience. 

" Mais, madame ! — it is as much as five or six 
kilos over the sands to the Mont from Genets ! "' 
was cried out in a tone of universal reproach. 

"Through rivers, madame, through rivers as 
high as that ! " and Auguste, striking in after the 
chorus, measured himself off at the breast. 

" Yes — the water comes to there, on the horse," 
added the driver, sweeping an imaginary horse's 
head, with a fine gesture, in the air. 

"Dame, that must be fine to see," cried down 
Leontine and Marie, gasping with little sighs of 
envy. 

" And so it is ! " cried back Auguste, nodding 
upward with dramatic gesture. " One can get as 
wet as a duck — splashing through those rivers. 
Dieu ! que c'est beau ! " And he clasped his hands 
as his eye, rolling heavenward, caught the blue 
and the velvet of the four feminine orbs on its up- 
ward way. Seeing which ecstasy, the courtyard 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 321 

visibly relented ; Aug-uste's rapture and his envy 
had worked the common human miracle of turning 
contempt for a folly into belief in it. 

This quick firing" of French people to a pleasur- 
able elation in others' adventure is, I think we 
must all ag"ree, one of the great charms of this ex- 
citable race : anything will serve as a pretext for 
setting- this symioathetic vibration in motion. 
What they all crave as a nation is a daily, hourly 
diet of the unusual, the unforeseen. 

It is this passion for incident which makes a 
Frenchman's life not unlike his soups, since in the 
case of both, how often does he make something 
out of nothing ! 

An hour later we were picking our way through 
the city's streets. Sweeter than the crushed flow- 
ers was the free air of the valley. 

There is no way of looking- back so agreeable, on 
the whole, I think, as to look back upon a city. 

From the near distance of the first turn in the 
road, Coutances and its cathedral were at their 
very best. The hill on which both stood was only 
one of the many hills we now saw g-rowing out of 
the green valley ; among the dozen hill-tops, this 
one we were leaving was only more crowded than 
the others, and more gloriously crowned. In giant 
height uprose, above the city's roofs and the lesser 
towers, the spires and the lovely lantern tower. 
This vast mass of stone, pricked into lacy aper- 
tures and with its mighty lines of grace — for how 
many a long century has it been in the eye of the 
valley ? Tancrede de Hauteville saw it before 
William was born — before he, the Conqueror, rode 



322 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

in his turn tlirong-li the green lanes to consecrate 
the church to One greater than he. From Tancrede 
to Boileau, what a succession of bishops, each in 
their turn, have had their eye on the great cathe- 
dral. There was a sort of viking bishop, one 
Geoffrey de Montbray, of the Conqueror's day, who, 
having a greater taste for men's blood than their 
purification, found Coutances a dull city ; there 
was more war of the kind his stout arm rejoiced 
in across the Channel ; and so he travelled a bit 
to do a little pleasant killing. From Geoffrey to 
Boileau and the latter's lacy ruffles — how many a 
rude Norman epic was acted out, here in the val- 
ley, beneath the soaring spires, before the Homeric 
combat was turned into the verse of a chanson de 
geste, a Roman de Ron, or a Lutrln ! 

As Poulette rolled the wheels along, instead of 
visored bishop, or mail rustling on strong breasts, 
there was the o]pen face of the landscape, and the 
tremble of the grasses beneath the touch of the 
wind. Coming down the hill was a very peaceable 
comjDany ; doubtless, between wars in those hot 
fighting centuries, just such travellers went up and 
down the hill-road as unconcernedly as did these\ 
peasants. There was quite a variety among the 
present groups : some were strictly family parties ; 
these talked little, giving their mind to stiff walk- 
ing — the smell of the soup in the farmyard kitchen 
was in their nostrils. The women's ages were 
more legibly read in their caps than in their faces — 
the older the women the prettier the caps. Among 
these groups, queens of the party, were some first 
communicants. Their white kid slippers were 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 323 

brown now, from tlie long walk in the city streets 
and the dust of the hig-hway. They held their 
veils with a maiden's awkwardness ; with bent 
heads they leaned gravely on their fathers' arms. 
In this, their first supreme experience of self- 
consciousness, they had the self-absorption of 
young brides. The trail of their muslin gowns 
and the light cloud of their veils made dazzling 
spots of brightness in the delicate frame of the 
June landscape. Each of these white-clad figures 
was followed by a long train of friends and rela- 
tives. 

" G'est joli a voir — it's a pretty sight, hein, my la- 
dies % — these young girls are beautiful like that ! " 
Our coachman took his eye off Poulette to turn in 
his seat, looking backward at the groups as they 
followed in our wake. " Ah — it was hard to leave 
my own— I had two like that, myself, in the pro- 
cession to-day." And the fulh Norman eye filled 
with a sudden moisture. This was a more attrac- 
tive glitter than the avarice of a moment be- 
fore. 

" You see, mesdames," he went on, as if wishing 
to excuse the moistened eyelids, " you see — it's a 
great day in the family when our children take 
their first communion. It is the day the child dies 
and the man, the woman is born. When our chil- 
dren kneel at our feet, before the priest, before 
their comrades, and beg us to forgive them all the 
sin they have done since they were born — it is too 
much — the heart grows so big* it is near to burst- 
ing. Ah — it is then we all weep ! " 

Charm settled herself in her seat with a satis- 



824 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

fied smile. " We are in luck — an emotional coacli- 
man wlio weeps and talks ! The five hours will 
fly," she murmured. Then aloud, to Jacques — as 
we learned the now sniffling- father was called — she 
presently asked, with the oil of encouragement in 
her tone : 

" You say your two were in the procession % " 

" Two ! there were five in all. Even the babies 
walked. Did you see Jesu and the Magdalen? 
They were mine — C'etait a moi, ga ! For the priests 
will have them — as many as they can get." 

" They are right. If the children didn't walk, 
how could the procession be so fine % " 

" Fine — heau — Qa ? " And there was a deep 
scorn in Jacques's voice. " You should have seen 
the fete twenty j^ears ago ! Now, its glory is as 
nothing. It's the priests themselves who are to 
blame. They've spoiled it all. Years ago, the 
whole town walked. Dieu — what a spectacle ! The 
mayor, the mairie, all the firemen, municipal ofii- 
cers — yes, even the soldiers walked. And as for 
the singing — dame, all the young men were chor- 
isters then — we were trained for months. When we 
walked and sang in the open streets the singing 
filled all the town. It was like a great thunder." 

" And the change — why has it come ? " persisted 
Charm. 

" Oh," Jacques reiDlied, caressing Poulette's 
haunches with his whip-lash. "It's the priests; 
they were too grasping. They are avaricious, 
that's what they are. They want everything for 
themselves. And a/efe — qci coute, vous savez. Be- 
sides, the spirit of the times has changed. People 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 325 

aren't so devout now. Libres penseurs — that's the 
fashion now. Hola, Poulette ! " 

Poulette responded. She dashed into the valley, 
below us now, as if this rolling- along- of a heavy 
victoria, a lot of luggage, and three travellers, 
was an agreeable episode in her career of toil. 
But on the mind of her owner, the spectre of the 
free-thinkers was still hovering like an evil spirit. 
During the next hour he gave us a long and exhaust- 
ive exposition of the changes wrought by ces mes- 
sieurs qui nient le hon Dicu. Among their crimes was 
to be numbered that of having disintegrated the 
morale of the peasantry. They — the peasants — no 
longer believed in miracles, and as for sorcery, for 
the good old superstitions, bah ! they were looked 
upon as old wives' tales. Even here, in the heart 
of this rural country, you would have to walk far 
before you could find une vraie sorciere, one who, 
by looking into a glass of water, for instance, could 
read the future as in a book, or one who, if your cow 
dried up, could name the evil spirit, the demon, 
who, among the peasants was exercising the curse. 
All this science was lost. A peasant would now 
be ashamed to bring his cow to a fortune-teller ; 
all the village would laugh. Even the shepherds 
had lost the power of communing with the planets 
at night ; and all the valley read the Petit Journal 
instead of consulting the vieUles meres. One must 
go as far as Brittany to see a real peasant with the 
superstitions of a peasant. As for Normandy, it 
went in step with the rest of the world, que diable ! 
And again the whip lash descended. Poulette 
must suffer for Jacques's disgust. 



326 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

If tlie Norman peasant was a modern, liis coun- 
try, at least, had retained the charm of its ancient 
beauty. The road was as Norman a highway as 
one could wish to see. It had the most capricious 
of natures, turning" and perversely twisting among 
the farms and uplands. The land was ribboned 
with growing grain, and the June grass was being 
cut. The farms stood close upon the roadway, as 
if longing for its companionship ; and then, having 
done so much toward the establishment of neigh- 
borly gossip, promptly turned their backs upon 
it — true Normans, all of them, with this their ap- 
pearance of frankness and their real reserves of 
secrecy. 

For a last time we caught a distant glimpse of 
the great cathedral. As we looked back across 
the bright-roofed villages, we saw the stately pile, 
gray, glorious, superb, dominating the scene, the 
hills, river, and fields, as in the old days the g-reat 
city walls and the cathedral towers had dominated 
all the human life that played helplessly about 
them. 

We were out once more among the green and 
yellow broadlands ; between our carriage - wheelsX 
and the horizon there was now spread a wide am- 
phi theatre of wooded hills. The windings of the 
pox)lar-lined road serpentined in sinuous grace in 
and out of forests, meadows, hills, and islands. 
The afternoon lights were deepening ; the shad- 
ows on the grain -fields cast by the oaks and beeches 
were a part of our comxDany. The blue bloom of 
the distant hills was strengthening into pur^Dle. 
As the light was intensifying in color, the human 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 327 

life in the fields was relaxing- its tension ; the bent 
backs were straightening, the ploughmen Avere 
whipping their steeds toward the open road ; for 
although it was Sunday, and a/efe day, the farmer 
must work. The women were gathering up some 
of the grasses, tying them into bundles, and toss- 
ing them on their heads as they moved slowly 
across the blackening earth. 

One field near us was jjeopled with a group of 
girls resting on their scythes. One or two among 
them were mopping their faces with their coarse 
blue aprons; the faces of all were aflame with 
the red of rude health. As we came upon them, 
some had flung away their scythes, the tallest 
among" the group grasping a near companion, 
playfully, in the i3ose of a wrestler. In an instant 
the comjDany was turned into a groujo of wrestlers. 
There was a great shout of laughter, as maiden af- 
ter maiden was tumbled over on her back or face 
amid the grasses. Sabots, short skirts, kerchiefs, 
scarlet arms rose and fell to earth in the mad 
whirl of their gayety. 

" StoiD, Jacques, I must see the end," cried 
Charm. " AVill they fight or dance, I wonder ! " 

" Oh, it is a pure Georgic — they'll dance." 
They were dancing alreadj^ The line, with dis- 
hevelled hair, aprons and kerchiefs askew, had 
formed into the square of a quadrille. A rude 
measure was tripped; a snatch of song, shouted 
amid the laughter, gave rhythm to the measure, 
and then the whole band, singing in chorus, 
linked arms and swept with a furious dash be- 
neath the thatched roof of a low farm-house. 



328 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

"As you see, my ladies, sometimes the fields 
are g'ay — even now," was Jacques's comment. 
" But they should be getting- their grasses in — for 
it'll rain before night. It's time to sing when the 
scythe sleeps — as we say here." 

To our eyes there were no signs of rain. The 
clouds rolling in the blue sea above us were only 
gloriously lighted. But the birds and the peas- 
ants knew their sky ; there was a great fluttering 
of wings among the branches ; and the peasants, 
as we rattled in and out of the hamlets, were pull- 
ing the reposoirs to pieces in the haste that pre- 
dicts bad weather. They had been " celebrating " 
all along- the road; and besides the piety, the 
Norman thrift was abroad upon the highway. 
Women were tearing sheets off the house fayades ; 
the lads and girls were bearing crosses, china 
vases, and highly-colored Yirgins from the wood- 
en altars into the low houses. 

Presently the great drops fell ; they beat upon 
the smooth roadway like so many hard bits of 
coin. In less than two ticks of the clock, the 
world was a wet world ; there were masses of soft 
gray clouds that were like so much cotton, drip- 
Y>mg: with moisture. The earth was as drenched 
as if, half an hour ago, it had not been a -jewel 
gleaming in the sun ; and the very farm-houses 
had quickly assumed an air of having been caught 
out in the rain without an umbrella. The farm 
gardens alone seemed to rejoice in the suddenness 
of the shower. Flowers have a way of shining, 
when it rains, that proves flower-petals have a 
woman's love of solitaires. 



THREE NORMA^^DY INNS. 329 

There were other dashes of color that made the 
g-ray landscape astonishingly brilliant. Some of 
the peasants on their way to the village /Wes were 
also caught in the passing- shower. They had 
opened their wide blue and purple umbrellas ; 
these latter made huge disks of color reflected in 
the glass of the wet macadam. The women had 
turned their black alpaca and cashmere skirts in- 
side out, tucking the edg'es about their stout 
hips; beneath the wide vivid circles of the drip- 
ping- umbrellas these brilliantly colored under- 
petticoats showed a liberal revelation of scarlet 
hose and thick ankles sunk in the freshly polished 
black sabots. The men's cobalt-blue blouses and 
their peaked felt hats spotted the landscape with 
contrasting- notes and outlines. 

After the last peaked hat had disappeared into 
the farm enclosures, we and the wet landscape had 
the rain to ourselves. The trees now were spec- 
tral shapes ; they could not be relied on as com- 
panions. Even the gardens and grain lands were 
mysteriously veiled, so close rolled the mists to 
our carriage- wheels. Beyond, at the farthest end 
of the road, these mists had formed themselves 
into a solid, compact mass. 

The clouds out yonder, far ahead, seemed to be 
enwrapping some part of earth that had lanced it- 
self into the sky. 

After a little the eyes unconsciously watched 
those distant woolly masses. There was a some- 
thing beyond, faint, vague, impalpable as yet, 
which the rolling mists begirt as sometimes they 
cincture an Alpine needle. Even as the thought 



830 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

came, a sudden lifting- of the gray mass showed 
the point of a high ui3lifted pinnacle. The point 
thereof pricked the sky. Then the Avind, like a 
strong- hand, swept the clouds into a mantle, and 
we saw the strange spectacle no more. 

For several miles our way led us throug-h a 
dim, phantasmal landscape. All the outlines were 
blurred. Even the rain was a veil ; it fell between 
us and the nearest hedgerows as if it had been a 
curtain. The jingling of Poulette's bell-collar and 
the gurgle of the water rushing in the guUeys — 
these were the only sounds that fell upon the ear. 

Still the clouds about that distant mass curled 
and rolled ; they were now breaking, now re-form- 
ing- — as if some strange and wondrous thing were 
hanging there — between heaven and earth. 

It was still far out, the mass ; even the lower 
mists were not resting on any plain of earth. They 
also were moved by something that moved beneath 
them, as a thick cloak takes the shape and mo- 
tion of the body it covers. Still we advanced, 
and still the great mountain of cloud grew and 
grew. And then there came a little lisping, hiss- 
ing sound. It was the kiss of the sea as it met\ 
some unseen shore. And on our cheeks the sea- ] 
wind blew, soft and salty to the lips. 

The mass was taking shape and outline. The 
mists rolled along some wide, broad base that 
rested beneath the sea, and skyward they clasped 
the apexal point of a pyramid. 

This pyramid in the sky was Mont St. Michel. 

With its feet in the sea, and its head vanishing 
into infinity— here, at last, was this rock of rocks, 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 331 

caught, pliant om- like, up into the very heavens 
above. 

It loomed out of the spectral landscape — itself 
the superlative spectre ; it took its flight upward 
as might some genius of beauty enrobed in a 
shroud of mystery. 

Such has it been to generations of men. Beau- 
tiful, remote, mysterious ! With its altars and its 
shrines, its miracle of stone carved by man on 
those other stones hewn by the wind and the tem- 
pest, Mont St. Michel has ever been far more a 
X)art of heaven than a thing of earth. 

Then, for us, the clouds suddenly lifted, as, for 
modern generations of men, the mists of super- 
stition have also rolled themselves away. 



MONT ST. MICHEL: 

AN INN ON A ROCK. 








'f 



CHAPTEE XXIX. 

BY SEA TO THE POULARD INN. 



'f; We were being" tossed in 
the air like so many balls. 
A Normandy char-a-banc 
was proving itself no re- 
specter of nice distinc- 
tions in conditions in life. 
It plilipped, dashed, and 
rolled us about with no 
more concern than if it 
were taking us to market 
to be sold by the pound. 
For we were on the 
grev e. The promised 
rivers were before us. 
So was the Mont, spec- 
tral no longer, but nearing with every plunge 
forward of our sturdy young Percheron. Loco- 
motion through any new or untried medium is 
certain to bring with the experiment a dash of 
elation. Now, driving through water appears to 
be no longer the fashion in our fastidious cen- 
tury ; someone might get a wetting, possibly, has 
been the conclusion of the prudent. And thus a 
very innocent and exciting bit of fun has been 




336 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

gradually relegated among- the lost arts of pleas- 
ure. 

We were taking water as we had never taken 
it before, and liking the method. "We were as 
wet as ducks, but what cared we ? We were be- 
ing deluged with spray; the spume of the sea 
was spurting in our faces with the force of a 
strong wet breeze, and still we liked it. Besides, 
driving thus into the white foam of the waters, 
over the sand ridges, across the downs, into the 
wide plains of wet mud, this was the old classical 
way of going up to the Mont. Surely, what had 
been found good enough as a pathway for kings 
and saints and pilgrims should be good enough 
for two lovers of old-time methods. The dike 
yonder was built for those who believe in the 
devil of haste, and for those who also serve him 
faithfully. 

Someone else besides ourselves was enjoying 
our drive through the waves. Our gay young 
Normandy driver seemed to find an exquisite 
relish in the spectacle of our wet faces and un- 
stable figures. He could not keep his eyes off us ; 
they fairly glistened with the dew of his enjoy- 
ment. Two ladies pitched and rolled about, ex- 
actly as if they were peasants, and laughing as if 
they were children — this was a spectacle and a 
keen appreciation of a joke that brought joy to a 
rustic blouse. 

" Ah — ah ! mesdames ! " he cried, exultingly, be- 
tween the gasps of his own laughter, as he tossed 
his own fine head in the air, sitting on his rude 
bench, covered with sheepskin, as if it had been 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 337 

an armchair. " Ah, ah ! mesclames, you didn't ex- 
pect this, hein ? You hoped for a landau, and 
feathers and cushions, perhaps ? But soft feath- 
ers and springs are not for the greve." 

" Is it dangerous ? are there deep holes 1 " 

" Oh, the holes, they are as nothing". It is the 
quicksands we fear. But it is only a little dan- 
ger, and danger makes the charm of travel, is it 
not so, my ladies "? Adventure, that is what one 
travels for ! Hid ! Fend I'Air ! " 

It had occurred to us before that we had been 
uncommonly lucky in our coachmen, as well as 
in the names of the horses, that had brightened 
our journey. In spite of Juliet, whose disdain of 
the virtue or the charm that lies in a name is no 
more worthy of respect than is any lover's opinion 
when 'in the full-orbed foolishness of his lunacy, 
I believe names to be a very effective adjunct to 
life's scenic setting. Most of the horses we had 
had along these Normandy high-roads, had an- 
swered to names that had helped to italicize the 
features of the country. Could Poulette, the sturdy 
little mare, with whom only an hour ago we had 
parted forever, have been given a better sobri- 
quet by which to have identified for us the fat 
landscape ? And now here was Fend I'Air proving 
good his talent for cleaving through space, what- 
ever of land or sea lay in his path. 

" And he merits his name, my lady," his driver 
announced with grave pride, as he looked at tlie 
huge haunches with a loving eye. " He can go, 
oh, but as the wind! It is he who makes of the 
crossing but as if it were nothing ! " 



338 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

The crossing- ! That was the key-note of the 
way the coast spoke of the Mont. The rock out 
yonder was a country apart, a bit of land or stone 
the shore claimed not, had no part in, felt to be as 
remote as if it were a foreign province. At Ge- 
nets the villag-e spoke of the Mont as one talks of 
a distant land. Even the journey over the sands 
was looked upon with a certain seriousness. A 
starting forth was the sig-nal for the village to as- 
semble about the char -el-hand's wheels. Quite a 
large company for a small village to muster was 
grouiDed about our own vehicle, to look on gravely 
as we mounted to the rude seat within. The vil- 
lagers gave us their " honjours " with as much fer- 
vor as if we were starting forth on a sea voyage. 

" You will have a good crossing ! " cackled one 
of the old men, nodding toward the peak in the 
sky. 

" The sands may be wet, but they are firm al- 
ready ! " added a huge peasant— the fattest man in 
all the canton, whisperingly confided the landlady, 
as one proud of possessing a village curiosity. 

" Hui, Fend I'Air ! attention, toi ! " Fend I'Air 
tossed his fine mane, and struck out with a will 
over the cobbles. But his driver was only loos- 
ing for the assembled village. He was in no real 
haste ; there was a fresh voice singing yonder in 
his mother's tavern; the sentimentalist in him 
was on edge to hear the end of the song. 

" Do you hear that, mesdames ? There's no such 
singing as that out of Paris. One must go to a 
caf^ " 

" Allans, toi ! " shrieked his mother's voice, as 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 339 

lier face darkened. " Do you think these ladies 
want to spend the night on the greue ? DepecJies- 
toi, vaurien ! " And she gave the wheels a shove 
with her strong hand, "whereat all the village 
laughed. But the good-for-nothing son made no 
haste as the song went on — 

" Le bon vin me fait clormir, 
Uamour me reveil " 

He continued to cock his head on one side and 
to let his eyes dream a bit. 

Within, a group of peasants was gathered about 
the inn table. There were some young girls 
seated among the blouses ; one of them, for the 
hour that we had sat waiting for Fend I'Air to be 
caiitured and harnessed, had been singing songs of 
questionable taste in a voice of such contralto 
sweetness as to have touched the heart of a bishop. 
" Some young girls from the factories at Avranches, 
mesdames, who come here Sundays to get a bit of 
fresh air ; Dieu sait si eJles en ont hesoin, iKiuvres 
enfants ! " was the landlady's charitable exjplana- 
tion. It appeared to us that the young ladies from 
Avranches were more in need of a moral than a 
climatic change. But then, we also charitably re- 
flected, it makes all the difference in the world, in 
these nice questions of taste and morality, whether 
one has had as an inheritance a past of Francis I. 
and a Rabelais, or of Calvin and a Puritan con- 
science. 

The geese on the green downs, just below the 
village, had clearly never even heard of Calvin ; 



340 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

tliey were luxuriating in a series of plunges into 
the deep pools in a way to prove complete igno- 
rance of nice Sabbatarian laws. 

With our first toss upon the downs, a world of 
new and fresh experiences began. Genets was 
quite right ; the Mont over yonder was another 
country; even at the very beginning of the 
journey we learned so much. This breeze blow- 
ing in from the sea, that had swept the ramparts 
of the famous rock, was a double extract of the 
sea-essence ; it had all the salt of the sea and the 
aroma of firs and wild flowers ; its lips had not 
kissed a garden in high air without the perfume 
lingering, if only to betray them. Even this strip 
of meadow marsh had a character peculiar to itself ; 
half of it belonged to earth and half to the sea. 
You might have thought it an inland pasture, 
with its herds of cattle, its flocks of sheep, and its 
colonies of geese— patrolled by ragged urchins. 
But behold, somewhere out yonder the pasture was 
lost in high sea-waves : ships with bulging sails 
replaced the curve of the cattle's sides, and in- 
stead of bending necks of sheep, there were sea- 
gulls swooping down upon the foamy waves. 

As the incarnation of this dual life of sea and' 
land, the rock stands. It also is both of the sea 
and the land. Its feet are of the waters — rocks 
and stones the sea-waves have used as i^laythings 
these millions of years. But earth regains pos- 
session as the rocks pile themselves into a moun- 
tain. Even from this distance, one can see the 
moving arms of great trees, the masses of yellow 
flower-tips that dye the sides of the stony hill, 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 341 

and tlie strips of green grass here and there. So 
much has nature done for this wonderful pyramid 
in the sea. Then man came and fashioned it to 
his liking. He piled the stones at its base into 
titanic walls ; he carved about its sides the round- 
ed breasts of bastions ; he piled higher and higher 
np the dizzy heights a medley of palaces, con- 
vents, abbeys, cloisters, to lay at the very top the 
fitting crown of all, a jewelled Norman-Gothic 
cathedral. 

Earth and man have thrown their gauntlet down 
to the sea — this rock is theirs, they cry to the 
waves and the might of oceans. And the sea 
laughs — as strong men laugh when boys are 
angry or insistent. She has let them build and 
toil, and pray and fight ; it is all one to her what 
is done on the rock — whether men carve its 
stones into lace, or rot and die in its dungeons ; 
it is all the same to her whether each spring the 
daffodils creep up within the crevices and the 
irises nod to them from the gardens. 

It is all one to her. For twice a day she re- 
captures the Mont. She encircles it with the 
strong arm of her tides ; with the might of her 
waters she makes it once more a thing of the sea. 

The tide was rising now. 

The fringe of the downs had dabbled in the 
shoals till they had become one. We had left 
behind the last of the shepherd lads, come out to 
the edge of the land to search for a wandering- 
kid. We were all at once plunging into high 
water. Our road was sunk out of sight ; we were 
driving through waves as high as our cart-wheels. 



342 THREE NOBMANDT INNS. 

Fend I'Air was shivering ; he was as a-tremble as 
a woman. The height of the rivers was not to his 
liking. 

" Sacre fahiQant ! " yelled his owner, treating 
the tremor to a mighty crack of the whip. 

" Is he afraid ? " 

" Yes — when the water is as high as that, he is 
always afraid. Ah, there he is — diantre, but he took 
his time ! " he growled, but the growl was set in 
the key of relief. He was pointing toward a fig- 
ure that was leaping toward us through the water. 
" It is the guide ! " he added, in exiDlanation. 

The guide was at Fend I'Air's shoulder. Very 
little of him was above water, but that little was 
as brown as an Egyptian. He was puffing and 
blowing like unto a porpoise. In one hand he 
held a huge pitchfork — the trident of this watery 
Mercury. 

" Shall I conduct you ? " he asked, dipping the 
trident as if in salute, into the water, as he still 
j)uffed and gasped. 

" If you please," as gravely responded our dri- 
ver. For though up to our cart-wheels and breasts 
in gleep water, the formalities were not to be dis-\ 
IDcnsed with, you understand. The guide placed 
himself at once in front of Fend I'Air,' whose 
shivers as quickly disappeared. 

" You see, mesdames — the guide gives him cour- 
age — and he now knows no fear," cried out with 
pride our whip on the outer bench. " And what 
news, Victor — is there any ? " It was of the Mont 
he was asking. And the guide replied, taking an 
extra plunge into deep water : 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 343 

"Oh, not mncli. There's to be a wedding to- 
morrow and a pilgrimag'e the next day. Madame 
Poulard has only a handful as yet. Ces dames 
descend doubtless at Madame Poulard's — celle qui 
fait les omelettes ? " The ladies were ignorant as 
yet of the accomplishments of the said landlady ; 
they had only heard of her beauty. 

" Oest elle," gravely chorussed the guide and 
the driver, both nodding their heads as their 
eyes met. " Fameuse, sa heaute, comme son omelette," 
as gravely added our driver. 

The beauty of this lady and the fame of her ome- 
lette were very sobering, apparently, in their ef- 
fects on the mind ; for neither guide nor driver 
had another word to say. 

Still the guide plunged into the rivers, and Pend 
I'Air followed him. Our cart still pitched and 
tossed — we were still rocked about in our rough 
cradle. But the sun, now freed from the banks of 
clouds, was lighting our way with a great and sud- 
den glory. And for the rest of our watery jourr 
ney we were conscious only of that lighting. Be- 
hind the Mont, lay a vast sea of saffron. But it 
was in the sky ; against it the great rock was as 
black as if the night were upon it. Here and 
there, through the curve of a flying buttress, or the 
apertures of a pierced parapet, gay bits of this 
yellow world were caught and framed. The sea 
lay beneath like a quiet carpet ; and over this car- 
pet ships and sloops swam with easy gliding 
motion, with sails and cordage dipped in gold. 
The smaller craft, moored close to shore, seemed 
transfigured as in a fog of gold. And nearer still 



34:4 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

were the brown walls of tlie Mont making a great 
shadow, and in the shadow the waters were as 
black as the skin of an African. In the shoals 
there were lovely masses of turquoise and pal- 
est green ; for here and there a cloudlet passed, 
to mirror their complexions in the translucent 
j)ools. 

But Fend I'Air's hoofs had struck a familiar 
note. His iron shoes were clicking along the 
macadam of the dike. There was a rapid dashing 
beneath the great walls ; a sudden night of dark- 
ness as we plunged through an open archway 
into a narrow village street ; a confused imxares- 
sion of houses built into side-walls ; of machico- 
lated gateways ; of rocks and roof-tops tumbling 
about our ears ; and within the street was sound- 
ing the babel of a shrieking troop of men and 
women. Porters, peasants, lads, and children were 
clamoring about our cart-wheels like unto so many 
jackals. The bedlam did not cease as we stopped 
before a wide, brightly -lit open doorway. 

Then through the doorway there came a tall, 
finely - featured brunette. She made her way 
through the yelling crowd as a duchess migh^ 
cleave a path through a rabble. She was at the 
side of the cart in an instant. She gave u§ a bow 
and smile that were both a welcome and an act of 
appropriation. She held out a firm, soft, brown 
hand. When it closed on our own, we knew it to 
be the grasp of a friend, and the clasp of one who 
knew how to hold her world. But when she 
spoke the words were all of velvet, and her voice 
had the cadence of a caress. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 345 

" I have been watcliing- you, cheres dames — cross- 
ing- the greve — but how wet and weary you must 
be ! Come in by the fire, it is ablaze now — I 
have been feeding- it for you ! " And once more 
the beautifully curved lips parted over the fine 
teeth, and the exceeding brightness of the dark 
eyes smiled and glittered in our own. The caress- 
ing- voice still led us forward, into the great gay 
kitchen ; the touch of skilful, discreet fing-ers un- 
did wet cloaks and wraps ; the soft charm of a 
lovely and g-racious woman made even the pene- 
trating warmth of the huge fire-logs a secondary 
feature of our welcome. To those who have never 
crossed a greve ; who have had no jolting in a 
Normandy char-a-banc : who, for hours, have not 
known the mixed pleasures and discomfort of be- 
ing a part of sea-rivers ; and who have not been 
met at the threshold of an Inn on a Kock by the 
smiling welcome of Madame Poulard — all such 
have yet a pleasant page to read in the book of 
travelled experience. 

Meanwhile somewhere, in an inner room, things 
sweet to the nostrils were cooking. Maids were 
tripping up and down stairs with covered dishes ; 
there was the pleasant clicking in the ear of the 
lids of things; dishes or pans or jars were being 
lifted. And more delicious to the ear than even 
the promise to starving mouths of food, and of red 
wine to the lip, was the continuing music of ma- 
dame's voice, as she stood over us purring with 
content at seeing her travellers drying and being 
thoroughly warmed. " The dinner-bell must soon 
be rung, dear ladies ; I delayed it as long as I 



346 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

dared — I gauged your progress across from the 
terrace — I have keiDt all my people waiting ; for 
your first dinner here must be hot ! But now it 
ring's ! Shall I conduct you to your rooms "? " 

I have no doubt that, even without this brunette 
beauty, with her olive cheek and her comely fig- 
ure as guides, we should have gone the way she 
took us in a sort of daze. One cannot pass un- 
der machicolated gateways ; rustle between the 
walls of fourteenth century fortifications ; climb a 
stone stairway that begins in a watch-tower and 
ends in a rampart, with a great sea view, and with 
the breadth of all the land shoreward ; walk calmly 
over the top of a king's gate, with the arms of a 
bishop and the shrine of the Yirgin beneath one's 
feet ; and then, iDresently, begin to climb the side 
of a rock in which rude stone steps have been cut, 
till one lands on a miniature terrace, to find a pre- 
posterously sturdy-looking house afiixed to a ri- 
diculous ledge of rock that has the x)resumption 
to give shelter to a hundred or more travellers — 
ground enough, also, for rows of plane-trees, for 
honeysuckles, and rose-vine, with a full coquet- 
tish equipment of little tables and iron chairs — \ 
no such journey as that up a rock was ever taken 
with entirely sober eyes. 

Although her peojDle were waiting below, and 
the dinner was on its way to the cloth, Madame 
Poulard had plenty of time to give to the beauty 
about her. How fine was the outlook from the top 
of the ramiDarts ! What a fresh sensation, this, 
of standing on a terrace in mid-air and looking 
down on the sea, and across to the level shores ! 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 347 

The rose-vines — we found them sweet — tiens — one 
of the branches had fallen — she had full time to 
re-adjust the loosened support. And " Marianne, 
give these ladies their hot water, and see to their 
bag's — " even this order was given with courtesy. 
It was only when the supple, agile figure had left 
us to fly down the steep rock-cut steps ; when it 
shot over the top of the gateway and slid with 
the grace of a lizard into the street far below us, 
that we were made sensible of there having been 
any especial need of madame's being in haste. 

That night, some three hours later, a pictur- 
esque group was assembled about this same sup- 
ple figure. A pretty, and unlooked-for ceremony 
was about to take place. 

It was the ceremony of the lighting of the lan- 
terns. 

In the great kitchen, in the dance of the fire- 
light and the glow of the lamps, some seven or 
eight of lis were being equi^aped with Chinese 
lanterns. This of itself was an engaging sight. 
Madame Poulard was always gay at this perform- 
ance — for it meant much innocent merriment 
among her guests, and with the lighting of the 
last lantern, her own day was done. So the brill- 
iant eyes flashed with a fresh fire, and the olive 
cheek glowed anew. All the men and women 
laughed as children sputter laughter, when they 
are both pleased and yet a little ashamed to show 
their pleasure. It was so very ridiculous, this 
journey up a rock with a Chinese lantern ! But 
just because it was ridiculous, it was also delight- 
ful. One — two — three — seven — eight — they were 



348 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

all lit. The last male guest had touched his cap 
to madame, exchang-ing- the " bonne nuit " a man 
only gives to a pretty woman, and that which a 
woman returns who feels that her beauty has re- 
ceived its just meed of homage ; madame's figure 
stood, still smiling, a radiant benedictory pres- 
ence, in the doorway, with the great glow of the 
firelight behind her ; the last laugh echoed down 
the street — and behold, darkness was upon us ! 

The street was as black as a cavern. The strip 
of sky and the stars above seemed almost day, by 
contrast. The great arch of the Porte du Eoi en- 
gulphed us, and then, slowly groping our way, we 
toiled up the steps to the open ram]parts. Here 
the keen night air swept rudely through our 
cloaks and garments ; the sea tossed beneath the 
bastions like some restless tethered creature, that 
showed now a gray and now a purple coat, and 
the stars were gold balls that might drop at any 
instant, so near they were. 

The men shivered and buttoned their coats, 
and the women laughed, a trifle shrilly, as they 
grasped the floating burnous closer about their 
faces and shoulders. 

And the lanterns' beams danced a strange dance 
on the stone flagging. 

Once more we were lost in darkness. We were 
passing through the old guardhouse. And then 
slowly, more slowly than ever, the lanterns were 
climbing the steps cut in the rock. Hands groped 
in the blackness to catch hold of the iron railing ; 
the laughter had turned into little shouts and 
gasps for help. And then one of the lanterns 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 349 

played a treacherous trick ; it showed the backs of 
two figures groping- upward together — about one 
of the girlish figures a man's arm was flung. As 
suddenly the noise of the cries was stilled. 

The lanterns played their fitful light on still 
other objects. They illumined now a vivid yellow 
shrub ; they danced upon a roof-top ; they flood- 
ed, with a sudden circlet of brilliance, the awful 
depths below of the swirling waters and of rocks 
that were black as a bottomless pit. 

Then the terrace was reached. And the lan- 
terns danced a last gay little dance among the 
roses and the vines before, Pouffe ! Pouffe ! and 
behold ! they were all blown out. 

Thus it was we went to bed on the Mont. 




CHAPTEE XXX. 

AN HISTOKICAL OMELETTE. — THE PILGEIMS AND THE 
SHEINE. 

To awake on a hill-top at sea. 
This was what morning- 
brought. 

Crowd this hill with 
houses plastered to the sides 
of rocks, with great walls 
girdling it, with tiny g-ardens 
lodged in crevices, and with 
a forest tumbling seaward. 
Let this hill yield you a 
town in which to walk, with a street of many- 
storied houses ; with other promenades along ram- 
parts as broad as church aisles; with dungeons, 
cloisters, halls, guard-rooms, abbatial gateways, 
and a cathedral whose flying buttresses seemed 
to spring from mid-air and to end in a cloud — 
such was the world into which we awoke on the 
heights of Mont St. Michel. 

The verdict of the shore on the hill had been a 
just one ; this Avorld on a rock was a world apart. 
This hill in the sea had a detached air — as if, 
though French, at heart a true Gaul, it had had 
from the beginning- of things a life of adventure 
peculiar to itself. The shore, at best, had been 




LA MEKVEILI.E AND APSE OF CHURCH— MONT SAINT MICHEL. 



THREE NORMANDT INNS. 351 

only a foster-mother ; the hill was the true child 
of the sea. Since its birth it has had a more or 
less enforced separateness, in exx)erience, from the 
country to which it belonged. Whether temple 
or fortress, whether forest-clad in virginal fierce- 
ness of aspect, or subdued into beauty by the 
touch of man's chisel, its destiny has ever been 
the same — to suffice unto itself — to be, in a word, 
a world in miniature. 

The Mont i3roved by its appearance its history 
in adventure ; it had the grim, grave, battered 
look that comes only to features, whether of rock 
or of more x^lastic human mould — that have been 
carved by the rough handling of experience. 

It is the common habit of hills and mountains, 
as we all know, to turn disdainful as they grow 
skyward; they only too eagerly drop, one by one, 
the things by which man has marked the earth for 
his own. To stand on a mountain top and to go 
down to your grave are alike, at least in this — 
that you have left everything, except yourself, be- 
hind you. But it is both the charm and the tri- 
umx^h of Mont St. Michel, that it carries so much 
of man's handiwork up into the blue fields of air ; 
this achievement alone would mark it as unique 
among hills. It appears as if for once man and 
nature had agreed to work in concert to produce a 
masterpiece in stone. The hill and the archi- 
tectural beauties it carries aloft, are like a taunt 
flung out to sea and to the upper heights of air ; 
for centuries they appear to have been crying 
aloud, " See what we can do, against your tempests 
and your futile tides — when we try." 



352 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

On tliat particular moniing-, the taunt seemed 
more like an epithalamium — such marriag-e-lines 
did sea and sky appear to be reading- over the 
giistening" face of the rock. June had pitched its 
tent of blue across the seas ; all the world was 
blue, except where the sun smote it into gold. To 
eyes in love with beauty, what a world at one's 
feet ! Beneath that azure roof, toward the west, 
was the world of water, curling-, dimpling, like 
some human thing charged with the conscious joy 
of dancing in the sun. Shoreward, the more stable 
earth was in the Moslem's ideal joosture — that of 
perpetual prostration. The Brittany coast was a 
long, flat, green band ; the rocks of Cancale were 
brown, but scarcely higher in point of elevation 
than the sand-hills ; the Normandy forests and 
orchards were rippling lines that focussed into 
the si^iral of the Avranches cathedral spires : 
floating between the two blues, hung the aerial 
shapes of the Chaunsey and the Channel Islands ; 
and nearer, along the coast-line, were the fring'ing 
edges of the shore, broken with shoals and shal- 
lows — earth's fingers, as it were, touching the sea 
■ — playing, as Coleridge's Abyssinian maid fingered 
the dulcimer, that music that haunts the poet's ear. 

We were seated at the little iron tables, on the 
terrace. We were sipping our morning coffee, 
beneath the • plane-trees. The terrace, a foot be- 
yond our coffee-cups, instantly began its true ca- 
reer as a precipice. We, ourselves, seemed to 
have begun as suddenly our own flight heaven- 
ward—on such astonishing terms of intimacy were 
we with the sky. The clapping close to our ears 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 353 

of larg-e-wing-ed birds ; tlie swirling- of tlie circling- 
sea-g-ulls ; the amazing- nearness of the cloud 
drapery — all this gave us the sense of being in a 
new world, and of its being a strangely pleasant 
one. 

Suddenly a cock's crow, shrill and clear, made 
us start from the luxurious languor of our content- 
ment ; for we had scarcely looked to find poultry 
on this Hill of Surprises. Turning in the direction 
of the homely, familiar note, we beheld a garden. 
In this g-arden walked the cock — a two-legged 
g-entleman of gorgeous plumage. If abroad for 
purely constitutional purposes, the crowing chan- 
ticleer must be forced to i^ass the same objects 
many times in review. Of all infinitesimal, micro- 
scopic gardens, this one, surely, was a model in 
minuteness. Yet it was an entirely self-respect- 
ing little garden. It was not much larger than a 
generous-sized pocket-handkerchief ; yet how much 
talent — for growing — may be hidden in a yard of 
soil — if the soil have the right virtue in it. Here 
were two rocks forming, with a fringe of cliff, a tri- 
angle ; in that tri-cornered bit of earth a lively 
crop of growing vegetables was offering flatter- 
ing signs of i3romise to the owner's eye. Where 
all land runs aslant, as all land does on this Mont, 
not an inch was to be wasted ; up the rocks peach 
and pear-split trees were made to climb — and why 
should they not, since everything else — since man 
himself must climb from the moment he touches 
the base of the hill ? 

Following the cock's call, came the droning 
sweetness of bees ; the rose and the honeysuckle 



354 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

vines were loading the morning air with the per- 
fume of tlieir invitations. Then a human voice 
drowned the bees' whirring, and a face as fresh 
and as smiling as the day stood beside us. It was 
the voice and the face of Madame Poulard, on the 
round of her morning inspections. Our table and 
the radiant world at her feet were included in this, 
her line of observations. 

"Ah, mesdames, comme vous savez bien vous 
placer ! — how admirably you understand how to 
place yourselves ! Under such a sky as this — be- 
fore such a si^ectacle — one should be in the front 
row, as at a theatre ! " 

And that was the beginning of our deeds finding 
favor in the eyes of Madame Poulard. 

It was our happy fate to drink many a morning 
cujo of coffee at those little iron tables ; to have 
many a prolonged chat with the charming land- 
lady of the famous inn ; to become as familiar 
with the glories and splendors of the historical 
hill as with the habits and customs of the world 
that came up to view them. 

For here our journey was to end. 

The comedy of life, as it had played itself out 
in Normandy inns, was here, in this Inn on a Rock, 
to give us a series of farewell performances.^ On 
no other stage, we were agreed, could the versatile 
French character have had as admirable and pict- 
uresque a setting ; and surely, on no other bit of 
French soil could such an astonishing and amaz- 
ing variety of types be assembled for a final ap- 
13earance, as came up, day after day, to make the 
tour of the Mont. 



THREE NOBMANDY INNS. 355 

To the shore, and for the M^hole of the near-lying 
Breton and Norman rnstic world, the Mont is still 
the Hill of Delight. It is their Alp, their shrine, 
the tenth wonder of the world, a prison, a palace, 
and a temple still. In spite of Parisian changes 
in religious fashions, the blouse is still devout ; 
for curiosity" is the true religion of the provincial, 
and all love of adventure did not die out with the 
Crusades. 

Therefore it is that rustic France along this 
coast still makes x^ilgrimages to the shrine of the 
Archangel St. Michael. No marriage is rightly 
arranged which does not include a wedding- jour- 
ney across the greve ; no nuptial breakfast is aure- 
oled with the true halo of romance which is eaten 
elsewhere than on these heights in mid-air. The 
young come to drink deep of wonders; the old, 
to refresh the depleted fountains of memory ; and 
the tourist, behold, he is as a plague of locusts 
let loose upon the defenceless hill ! 

After a fortnight's sojourn, Charm and I held 
many a grave consultation ; close observation of 
this world that climbed the heights had bred cer- 
tain strange misgivings. What was it this world 
of sight-seers came up to the Mont for to see ? 
Was it to behold the great glories thereof, or 
was it, oh, human eye of man ! to look on the face 
of a charming woman % It was imxDossible, after 
sojourning a certain time upon the hill, not to 
concede that there were two equally strong' cen- 
tres of attractions, that drew the world hither- 
ward. One remained, indeed, gravely suspended 
between the doubt and the fear, as to which of 



356 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

these potential units had the greater pull, in 
point of actual attraction. The impartial histo- 
rian, given to a just weighing" of evidence, would 
have been startled to find how invariably the 
scales tipped ; how lightly an historical Mont, 
born of a miracle, crowned by the noblest build- 
ings, a pious Mecca for saints and kings in- 
numerable, shot up like feathers in lightness 
when over-weighted by the modern realities of 
a perfectly appointed inn, the cooking and eat- 
ing of an omelette of omelettes, and the all-con- 
quering charms of Madame Poulard. The fog of 
doubt thickened as, day after day, the same scenes 
were enacted; when one beheld all sorts and con- 
ditions of men similarly affected ; when, again 
and again, the potentiality in the human magnet 
was loroved true. Doubt turned to conviction, at 
the last, that the holy shrine of St. Michael had, 
in truth, been violated ; that the Mont had been 
desecrated ; that the latter exists now solely as a 
setting for a pearl of an inn ; and that within the 
shrine — it is Madame Poulard herself who fills 
the niche ! 

The pilgrims come from darkest Africa and the' 
sunlit Yosemite, but they remain to pray at the 
Inn of the Omelette. Yonder, on the gr&ves, as 
we ourselves had proved, one crosses the far seas 
and one is wet to the skin, only to hear the 
praises sung of madame's skill in the handling 
of eggs in a pan ; it is for this the lean guide 
strides before the pilgrim tourist, and that he 
dippeth his trident in the waters. At the great 
gates of the fortifications the pilgrim descends, 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 357 

and behold, a howling- chorus of serving-people 
take up the chant of : " Chez lladame Poulard, a 
gauche, a, la o-enommee de Vomelette ! " The inner 
walls of the town lend themselves to their last 
and best estate, that of proclaiming the glory of 
" L' Omelette" Placards, rich in indicative illus- 
trations of hands all forefingers, jioint, with a 
directness never vouchsafed the sinner eager to 
find the way to right and duty, to the inn of 
" L' Incomparable, la Fameuse Omelette ! " The pil- 
grims meekly descend at that shrine. They bow 
low to the worker of the modern miracle ; they 
pass with eager, trembling foot, into the inner 
sanctorum, to the kitchen, where the presiding 
deity receives them with the grace of a queen and 
the simplicity of a saint. 

Life on the Mont, as we soon found, resolved 
itself into this — into so arranging one's day as to 
be on hand for the great, the eventful hour. In 
point of fact there were two such hours in the Mont 
St. Michel day. There was the hour of the cook- 
ing of the omelette. There was alwaj^s the other 
really more tragic hour, of the coming across the 
dike, of the huge lumbering omnibuses. For you 
see, that although one may be beautiful enough 
to compete successfully against dead-and-gone 
saints, against worn-out miracles, and wonders 
in stone, human nature, when it is alive, is hu- 
man nature still. It is the curse of success, the 
world over, to arouse jealousy ; and w^e all have 
lived long enough to know that jealousy's evil- 
browed offspring are named Hate and Competi- 
tion. Up yonder, beyond the Porte du Eoi, ri- 



358 THREE NOBMAlffBY INNS. 

valry lias set up a counter-shrine, witli a compe- 
ting saint, with all the hateful accessories of a 
pretty face, a younger figure, and a graceful if 
less skilled aptitude in the making of omelettes in 
public. 

The hour of the coming in of the coaches, was, 
therefore, a tragic hour. 

On the arrival of the coaches Madame was at 
her i^ost long before the ]3ilgrims came up to her 
door. Being entirely without personal vanity — 
since she felt her beauty, her cleverness, her grace, 
and her charm to be only a part of the capital of 
the inn trade — a higher order of the stock in trade, 
as it were — she made it a point to look hand- 
somer on the arrival of coaches than at any other 
time. Her cheeks were certain to be rosier ; her 
bird's head was always carried a trifle more tak- 
ingly, perched coquettishly sideways, that the 
caressing smile of welcome might be the more 
personal ; and as the woman of business, lining 
the saint, so to speak, was also present, into the 
deep pockets of the blue-checked apron, the cal- 
culating fingers were thrust, that the quick count- 
ing of the incoming guests might not be madeX 
too obvious an action. 

After such a pose, to see a pilgrim escape ! To 
see him pass by, unmoved by that smile, turning 
his feelingless back on the true shrine ! It was 
enough to melt the stoutest heart. Madame's 
welcome of the captured, after such an affront, 
was set in the minor key ; and her smile was the 
smile of a suffering angel. 

" Cows, mon enfant, run, see if he descends or if 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 359 

lie pnslies on ; tell him I am Madame Poulard ! " 
This, a low command murmured between a hun- 
dred orders, still in the minor key, would be 
purred to Clementine, a peasant in a cap, exceed- 
ing- fleet of foot, and skilled in the capture of 
wandering" sheep. 

And Clementine would follow that stray pil- 
grim ; she would attack him in the open street ; 
would even climb after him, if need be, u]) the 
steep rock-steps, till, proved to be following 
strang-e gods, he would be brought triumphantly 
back to the kitchen-shrine, by Clementine, puf- 
fing-, but exultant. 

" Ah, monsieur, how could you pass us by 1 " 
madame's soft voice would murmur reproachfully 
in the pilgrim's ear. And the pilgrim, abashed, 
ashamed, would quickly make answer, if he were 
born of the right parents : " Chere madame, how 
was I to believe my eyes ? It is ten years since I 
was here, and you are younger, more beautiful 
than ever ! I was going in search of your moth- 
er ! " at which needless truism all the kitchen 
would laugh. Madame Poulard herself would find 
time for one of her choicest smiles, although this 
was the great moment of the working of the 
miracle. She was beginning to cook the ome- 
lette. 

The head-cook was beating the eggs in a great 
yellow bowl. Madame had already taken her 
stand at the yawning Louis XV. fireplace; she 
was beginning gently to balance the huge casserole 
over the glowing logs. And all the pilgrims were 
standing about, watching the process. Now, the 



360 THREE NORMANDT INNS. 

group circling" about the great fireplace was 
scarcely ever the same : the pilgrims presented a 
different face and garb day after day — but in point 
of hunger they were as one man ; they were each 
and all as unvaryingly hungry as only tourists 
could be, who, clamoring- for food, have the smell 
of it in their nostrils, with the added ache of 
emptiness gnawing within. But besides hung-er, 
each one of the pilgrims had brought with him a 
pair of eyes ; and what eyes of man can be pure 
savage before the spectacle of a pretty woman 
cooking, for him, before an open fire ? Therefore 
it was that still another miracle was wrought, that 
of turning a famished mob into a buzzing- swarm 
of admirers. 

" 3Ia{s si, monsieur, in this pan I can cook an 
omelette large enough for you all : you will see. 
Ah, madame, you are off already ? Celestine ! 
Madame's bill, in the desk yonder. And you, 
monsieur, you too leave us 1 Deux cognacs ? Vic- 
tor — deux cognacs et une demi-tasse pour mon- 
sieur ! " 

These and a hundred other answers and ques- 
tions and orders, were uttered in a fluted voice or 
in a tone of sharp command, by the miracle-worker, 
as the pan was kept gently turning, and the eggs 
were poured in at just the right moment — not one 
of the pretty poses of head and wrist being forgot- 
ten. Madame Poulard, like all clever women who 
are also ]3retty, had two voices : one was dedicated 
solely to the working of her charms ; this one was 
soft, melodious, caressing, the voice of dove when 
cooing ; the other, used for strictly business pur- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 361 

poses, was set iu the quick, metallic staccato tones 
proper for such occasions. 

The dove's voice was trolling- its sweetness, as 
she went on 

" Eg-g-s, monsieur ? How many I use ? Ah, it 
is in the season that counting the dozens becomes 
difficult — seventy dozen I used one day last 
year ! " 

"Seventy dozen!" the pilgrim - chorus ejacu- 
lated, their eyes growing- the wider as their lips 
moistened. For behold, the eggs were now cooked 
to a turn ; the long-handled pan was being lifted 
with the effortless skill of long- practice, the ome- 
lette was rolled out at just the right instant of 
consistency, and was being- as quickly turned into 
its g-reat flat dish. 

There was a scurrying and scampering- up 
the wide steps to the dining room, and a hasty 
settling into the long rows of chairs. Presently 
madame herself would appear, bearing- the huge 
dish. And the omelette — the omelette, unlike the 
l^ilgrims, would be found to be always the same — 
melting, juicy, g-olden, luscious, and above all 
hot! 

The noon-day table d'hote was always a sight to 
see. Many of the pilgrim-tourists came up to the 
Mont merely to pass the day, or to stop the night ; 
the midday meal was therefore certain to be the 
liveliest of all the repasts. 

The cloth was spread in a high, white, sunlit 
room. It was a trifle bare, this room, in spite of 
the walls being covered with pictures, the win- 
dows with pretty draperies, and the spotless linen 



362 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

that covered the long table. But all temples, 
however richly adorned, have a more or less un- 
furnished aspect ; and this room served not only 
as the dining-table, but also as a foreshadowing of 
the ajDotheosis of Madame Poulard. Here were 
grouped together all the trophies and tributes of 
a grateful world ; there were ]portraits of her 
charming brunette face signed by famous admir- 
ers ; there were sonnets to her culinary skill and 
her charms as hostess, framed ; these alternated 
with gifts of horned beasts that had been slain in 
her honor, and of stuifed birds who, in life, had 
beguiled the long winters for her with their songs. 
About the wide table, the snow of the linen re- 
flected always the same i3icture ; there were rows 
of little palms in flower-pots, interspersed with 
fruit dishes, with the butter pats, the almonds, 
and raisins, in their flat iDlates. 

The rows of faces above the cloth were more 
varied. The four corners of the earth were some- 
times to be seen gathered together about the 
breakfast-table. Frenchmen of the Midi, with the 
skin of Spaniards and the buzz of Tartarin's ze ze 
in their speech ; priests, lean and fat ; Germans \ 
who came to see a French stronghold as defence- 
less as a woman's palm ; the Italian, a rarer type, 
whose shoes, sufiiciently pointed to prick, and 
whose choice for decollete collars betrayed his na- 
tionality before his lisping French accent could 
place him indisputably beyond the Alps ; herds of 
English — of all types — from the aristocrat, whose 
open-air life had colored his face wath the hues of 
a butcher, to the i3ale, ascetic clerk, off on a two 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 3C3 

weeks' holiday, wliose bending- at liis desk had 
g-iven him the stoop of a scholar ; with all these 
were mixed hordes of French provincials, chiefly 
of the bourgeois type, who singly, or in family 
parties, or in the nuptial train of sons or daugh- 
ters, came up to the shrine of St. Michel. 

To listen to the chatter of these tourists was to 
learn the last word of the world's news. As in the 
days before men spoke to each other across conti- 
nents, and the medium of cold type had made the 
event of to-day the history of to-morrow, so these 
X3ilgrims talked through the one medium that 
alone can g"ive a fact the real essence of freshness 
— the ever young, the perdurably charming- hu- 
man voice. It was as good as sitting- out a play 
to watch the ever-recurring- characteristics, which 
made certain national traits as marked as the 
noses on the faces of the tourists. The question, 
for example, on which side the Channel a pilgrim 
was born, was settled five seconds after he was 
seated at table. The way in which the butter was 
passed was one test ; the manner of the eating of 
the famous omelette was another. If the tourist 
were a Frenchman, the neat glass butter-dish was 
turned into a visiting-card — a letter of introduc- 
tion, a pontoon-bridge, in a word, hastily impro- 
vised to throw across the stream of conversation. 
" Madame " (this to the lady at the tourist's left), 
me 2yermet-elle de luioffrw le heurre ? " Whereat ma- 
dame bowed, smiled, accepted the golden balls as 
if it were a bouquet, returning the gift, a few sec- 
onds later, by the proffer of the gravy dish. Be- 
tween the little ceremony of the two bows and the 



3()4: THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

smiling" mercis,& tentative outbreak of speecli en- 
sued, which at the end of a half-hour, had siDread 
from bourgeois to countess, from cure to Parisian 
houlevardier, till the entire side of the table was 
in a buzz of talk. These genial people of a genial 
land finding themselves all in search of the same 
adventure, on top of a hill, away from the petty- 
world of conventionality, remembered that speech 
was given to man to communicate with his fel- 
lows. And though neighbors for a brief hour, 
how charming such an hour can be made when 
into it are crowded the effervescence of jDersonal 
experience, the witty exchange of comment and 
observation, and the agreeable conflict of thought 
and opinion ! 

On the opposite side of the table, what a con- 
trast ! There the English were seated. There 
was the silence of the grave. All the rigid fig- 
ures sat as upright as jDosts. In front of these 
severe countenances, the butter-plates remained 
as fixtures; the passing of them to a neighbor 
would be a frightful breach of good form — be- 
sides being dangerous. Such practices, in public 
places, had been known to lead to things — to un- 
speakable things — to knowing the wrong people, 
to walks afterward with cads one couldn't shake 
off, even to marriages with the impossible ! There- 
fore it was that the butter remained a fixture. 
Even between those who formed the same tourist- 
party, there was rarely such an act of self-forget- 
fulness committed as an indulgence in talk — in 
public. The eye is the only active organ the 
Englishman carries abroad with him ; his talking 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 365 

is done by staring. What fierce scowls, what dark 
looks of disapproval, contempt, and dislike were 
levelled at the chattering- Frenchmen opposite. 

Across the table, the national hate perpetuated 
itself. It appears to be a test of patriotism, 
this hatred between Frenchmen and Englishmen. 
That strip of linen might easily have been the 
Channel itself ; it could scarcely more effectually 
have separated the two nations. A whole comedy 
of bitterness, a drama of rivalry, and a five-act 
tragedy of scorn were daily played between the 
Briton who sat facing the south, and the French- 
man who faced north. Both, as they eyed their 
neighbor over the foam of their napkins, had the 
Island in their eye ! — the Englishman to flaunt its 
might and glory in the teeth of the hated Gaul, 
and the Frenchman to return his contempt for a 
nation of moist barbarians. 

Meanwhile, the omelette was going its rounds. 
It was being passed at that moment to Monsieur 
le Cure. He had been watching its progress with 
glistening eye and moistening lips. Madame 
Poulard, as she slipped the melting morsel be- 
neath his elbow, had suddenly assumed the role 
of the penitent. Her tone was a reminder of the 
confessional, as of one who jDassed her master- 
piece apologetically. She, forsooth, a sinner, to 
have the honor of ministering to the carnal needs 
of a son of the Church ! 

The son of the Church took two heaping spoon- 
fuls. His eye gave her, with his smile, the bene- 
diction of his gratitude, even before he had tasted 
of the luscious compound. 



360 THREE NOBMANDY INNS. 

"Ah, cliere maclame ! il n'y a que vous — it is only 
you who can make tlie ideal omelette ! I have 
tried, but Suzette has no art in her fingers ; your 
receipt doesn't work away from the Mont ! " And 
the good man sighed as he chuckled forth his 
praises. 

He had come up to the hill in company with 
the two excellent ladies beside him, of his flock, 
to make a little visit to his brethren yonder, to 
the priests who were still here, wrecks of the once 
former flourishing monastery. He had come to 
see them, and also to gaze on La Merveille. It 
was a good five years since he had looked upon 
its dungeons and its lace-work. But after all, in 
his secret soul of souls, he had longed to eat of 
the omelette. Dieu I how often during those 
slow, quiet years in the little hamlet yonder on 
the plain, had its sweetness and lightness mocked 
his tongue with illusive tasting ! Little wonder, 
therefore, that the good cure's praises were sweet 
in madame's ear, for they had the ring of truth — 
and of envy ! And madam e herself was only mor- 
tal, for what woman lives but feels herself up- 
lifted by the sense of having found favor in the 
eyes of her iDriest ? 

The omelette next came to a halt between -the 
two ladies of the cure's flock. These were two 
bourgeoises with the deprecating, mistrustful air 
peculiar to commonplace the world over. The 
walk up the steep stairs was still quickening their 
breath — their compressed bosoms were straining 
the hooks of their holiday woollen bodices — cut 
when they were of slenderer build. Their bon- 



THBEE NOBMANDT INNS. 367 

nets proclaimed tlie antique fashions of a i)ast 
decade; but the edge of their tongues had the 
keenness that comes with daily practice — than 
which none has been found surer than adoration 
of one's pastor, and the inyigorating- gossip of 
small towns. 

These ladies eyed the omelette with a chilled 
glance. Naturally, they could not see as much to 
admire in Madame Poulard or in her dish as did 
their cure. There was nothing so wonderful after 
all in the turning* of eggs over a hot fire. The 
omelette ! — after all, an omelette is an omelette ! 
Some are better — some are worse ; one has one's 
luck in cooking as in anything else. They had 
come up to the Mont with their good cure to see 
its wonders and for a day's outing ; admiration of 
other women had not been anticipated as a part of 
the programme. Tiens — who was he talking to 
now ? To that tall blonde — a foreigner, a young 
girl — tiens — who knows ? — possibly an American — 
those Americans are terrible, they say — bold, im- 
modest, irreverent. And the two ladies' necks 
were screwed about their over-tight cdUars, to 
give Charm the verdict of their disapproval. 

"Monsieur le Cure, they are passing you the 
fish ! " cried the stouter, more aggressive parish- 
ioner, who boasted a truculent mustache. 

" Monsieur le Cure, the roast is at your elbow ! " 
interpolated the second, with the more timid 
A'oice of a second in action ; this jjrotector of the 
good cure had no mustache, but her face was 
mercifully protected by nature from a too-disturb- 
ing combination of attractions, by being plenti- 



3Q8 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

fully punctuated witli moles from wliicli sprouted 
little tufts of hair. The rain of these ladies' inter- 
ruption was incessant ; but the cure was a man of 
firm mind ; their efforts to recapture his attention 
were futile. For the music of Charm's foreign 
voice was in his ear. 

Worship of the cloth is not a national, it is a 
more or less universal cult, I take it. It is in 
the blood of certain women. Opposite the two 
fussy, jealous bourgeoises, were others as importun- 
ate and aggressive. They were of fair, lean, lank 
English build, with the shifting eyes and the per- 
sistent courage which come to certain maidens in 
whose lives there is but one fixed and certain fact 
— that of having missed the matrimonial market. 
The shrine of their devotions, and the present 
citadel of their attack, was seated between them — 
he also being lean, pale, high-arched of brow, 
high anglican by choice, and noticeably weak of 
chin, in whose sable garments there was framed 
the classical clerical tie. 

To this curate Madame was now passing her 
dish. She still wore her fine sweet smile, but 
there was always a discriminating reserve in its 
edge when she touched the English elbow. The 
curate took his spoonful with the indifference -of a 
man who had never known the religion of good 
eating. He put up his one eye-glass ; it swept 
Madame's bending face, its smile, and the yellow 
glory floating beneath both. "Ah — h — ya — as^ 
an omelette ! " The glass was dropped; he took a 
meagre spoonful which he cut, presently, with his 
knife. He turned then to his neighbors — to both 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 369 

liis neiglibors ! Tliey had been talking of the 
parish church on the hill. 

"Ah-h-h, ya-as — lovely porch — isn't it?" 

" Oh, lovely — lovely ! " chornssed the two maid- 
ens, with assenting- fervor. " Were you there this 
morning ? " and they lifted eyes swimming with 
the rapture of their admiration. 

" Ya-as." 

" Only fancy — our missing you ! "We were both 
there ! " 

" De-ar me ! Really, were you ? " 

" Could you go this afternoon ? I do want so to 
hear your criticism of my drawing — I'm working 
on the arch now." 

" So sorry — can't — possibly. I promised what's 
his name to go over to Tombelaine, don't you 
know ! " 

" Oh-h ! We do so want to go to Tombelaine ! " 

"Ah-h — do you, really ? One ought to start a 
little before the tide drops — they tell me ! " and 
the clerical eye, through its correctly adjusted 
glass, looked into those four pleading eyes with 
no hint of softening. The dish that was the mas- 
terpiece of the house, meanwhile, had been de- 
spatched as if it were so much leather. 

The omelette fared no better with the brides, 
as a rule, than with the English curates. Such a 
variety of brides as came up to the Mont ! You 
could have your choice, at the midday meal, of 
almost any nationality, age, or color. The at- 
tempt among these bridal couples to maintain the 
distant air of a finished indifference only made 
their secret the more open. The British phlegm. 



370 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

on sucli a journey, did not always serve as a con- 
venient mask ; tlie flattering, timid glance, the rip- 
ple of the tender whispers, and the furtive touch- 
ing of fingers beneath the table, made even these 
English couples a part of the great human marry- 
ing family ; their superiority to their fellows would 
return, doubtless, when the honey had dried out of 
their moon. The best of our adventures into this 
tender country were with the French bridal tour- 
ists ; they were certain to be delightfully human. 
As we had had occasion to remark before, they 
were off, like ourselves, on a little voyage of dis- 
covery ; they had come to make acquaintance with 
the being to whom they were mated for life. 
Various degrees of progress could be read in the 
air and manner of the hearty young bourgeoises 
and their i^aler or even ruddier partners, as they 
crunched their bread or sipped their thin wine. 
Some had only entered as yet upon the path of 
inquiry ; others had already passed the mile-stone 
of criticism; and still others had left the earth 
and were floating in full azure of intoxication. 
Of the many wedding parties that sat down to 
breakfast, we soon made the commonplace discov- 
ery that the more plebeian the company, the more 
certain-orbed appeared to be the x^romise of hap- 
piness. 

Some of the peasant weddings were noisy, 
boisterous laerformances ; but how gay were the 
brides, and how bloated with joy the hardy, 
knotty-handied grooms ! These peasant wedding 
guests all bore a striking family likeness; they 
might easily all have been brothers and sisters, 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 371 

whether they had come from the fields near Pon- 
torson, or Cancale, or Dol, or St. Malo. The older 
the women, the prettier and the more gossamer 
were the caps ; but the younger maidens were al- 
ways delightful to look upon, such was the ripe 
vigor of their frames, and the liquid softness of 
eyes that, like animals, were used to wide sunlit 
fields and to great skies full of light. The bride, 
in her brand-new stuff gown, with a bonnet that 
recalled the bridal wreath only just laid aside, was 
also certain to be of a general universal type — 
with the broad hips, wide waist, muscular limbs, 
and the melting" sweetness of lips and eyes that 
only abundant health and a rich animalism of nat- 
ure bring to maidenhood. 

Madame Poulard's air with this, her world, was 
as full of tact as with the tourists. Many of the 
older women would give her the Norman kiss, sol- 
emnly, as if the salute were a part of the ceremony 
attendant on the eating of a wedding breakfast at 
Mont St. Michel. There would be a three times' 
clapping of the wrinkled or the ruddy peasant 
cheeks against the sides of Madame Poulard's 
daintier, more delicately modelled face. Then all 
would take their seats noisily at table. It was 
Madame Poulard who then would bring us news 
of the party ; at the end of a fortnight, Charm and 
I felt ourselves to be in possession of the hidden 
and secret reasons for all the marrying that had 
been done along the coast, that year. " Tiens, ce 
n'est pas gai, la noce ! I must learn the reason ! " 
Madame would then flutter over the bridal break- 
fasters as a delicate-plumaged bird hovers over a 



372 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

mass of stuff out of which it hopes to make a re- 
spectable meal. She presently would return to 
murmur in a whisper, " it is a mariage de raison. 
They, the bride and groom, love elsewhere, but 
they are marrying to make a good partnership ; 
they are both hair-dressers at Caen. They have 
bought a new and fine shop with their earnings." 
Or it would be, " Look, madame, at that jolie per- 
sonne ; see how sad she looks. She is in love with 
her cousin who sits opposite, but the groom is the 
old one. He has a large farm and a hundred cows." 
To look on such a trio would only be to make the 
acquaintance anew of Sidonie and Eisler and of 
Froment Jeune. Such brides always had the wan- 
dering gaze of those in search of fresh horizons, 
or of those looking already for the chance of es- 
cape. For such "unhappies," ces mallieureuses, Ma- 
dame's manner had an added softness and tender- 
ness ; she passed the frosted bridal cake as if it 
were a propitiatory offering to the God of Hymen. 
However melancholy the bride, the cake and Ma- 
dame's caressing smiles wrought ever the same 
spell; for an instant, at least, the newly-made 
wife was in love with matrimony and with the 
cake, accepting the latter with the pleased sur- 
prise of one who realizes that, at least, on. one's 
wedding day, one is a person of importance ; that 
even so far as Mont St. Michel the news of their 
marriage had turned the ovens into a baking of 
wedding-cakes. This was destined to be the first 
among the deceptions that greeted such brides ; for 
there were hundreds of such cakes, alas ! kept con- 
stantly on hand. They were the same — a glory of 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 373 

siigar-moulding's and devices covering" a mountain 
of richness — that were sent up yearly at Christmas 
time to certain mansard studios in the Latin quar- 
ter, where the artist recipients, like the brides, eat 
of the cake as did Adam when partaking of the 
apple, believing all the woman told them ! 

There were other visitors who came up to the 
Mont, not as welcome as were these tourist par- 
ties. 

One morning", as we looked toward Pontorson, 
a small black cloud appeared to be advancing" 
across the bay. The day was windy ; the sky was 
crowded with hug"e white mountains — round, 
luminous clouds that moved in stately sweeps. 
And the sea was the color one loves to see in an 
'earnest woman's eye, the dark -blue sapphire that 
turns to blue-gray. This was a setting that made 
that particular cloud, making such slow progress 
across from the shore, all the more conspicuous. 
Gradually, as the black mass neared the dike, it 
began to break and separate ; and we saw plainly 
enough that the scattering particles were human 
beings. 

It was, in point of fact, a band of pilgrims ; a 
peasant pilgrimage was coming up to the Mont. In 
wagons, in market carts, in char-d-hancs, in don- 
key-carts, on the backs of monster Percherons— 
the pilgrimage moved in slow processional dig- 
nity across the dike. Some of the younger black 
gowns and blue blouses attempted to walk across 
over the sands ; we could see the girls sitting 
down on the edge of the shore, to take off their 
shoes and stockings and to tuck up their thick 



374 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

skirts. When they finally started they were like 
unto so many huge cheeses hoisted on stilts. The 
bare legs plunged boldly forward, keeping ahead 
of the slower-moving peasant-lads ; the girls' 
bravery served them till they reached the fringe 
of the incoming tide ; not until their knees went 
under water did they forego their venture. A 
higher wave came in, deluging the ones farthest 
out ; and then ensued a scampering toward the 
dike and a climbing up of the stone embank- 
ment. The old route across the sands, that had 
been the only one known to kings and barons, 
was not good enough for a modern Norman peas- 
ant. The religion of personal comfort has spread 
even as far as the fields. 

At the entrance gate a tremendous hubbub and 
noise announced the arrival of the x^ilgrimage. 
Wagons, carts, horses, and peasants were crowded 
together as only such a throng is mixed in pil- 
grimages, wars, and fairs. Women were taking 
down hoods, unharnessing the horses, fitting slats 
into outsides of wagons, rolling up blankets, un- 
packing from the char-a-bancs cooking utensils, 
children, grain-bags, long columns of bread, and\ 
hard-boiled eggs. For the women, darting hither \ 
and thither in their blue petticoats, their pink 
and red kerchiefs, and the stiff white Norman caps, 
were doing all the work. The men appeared to 
be decorative adjuncts, plying the Norman's gift 
of tongue across wagon-wheels and over the back 
of their vigorous wives and daughters. For them 
the battle of the day was over ; the hour of relax- 
ation had come. The bargains they had made 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 37o 

along the route were now to be rehearsed, sea- 
soned with a joke. 

" Allons, toi, on ne fait j^ci-s de la momiaie hianchc 
comme ^a ! " 

" Je t'ai qffert huit sous, tu sais, lapin ! " 

" Farceur, va-fen " 

" Come, are you never going to have done fool- 
ing ? " cried a tan-colored, wide-hipped peasant to 
her husband, who was lounging against the wagon 
pole, sporting a sprig of gentian pinned to his 
blouse. He was fat and handsome ; and his eye 
proclaimed, as he was making it do heavy work at 
long range at a cluster of girls descending from 
an antique gig, that the knowledge of the same 
was known unto him. 

" That's right, growl ahead, thou, fes heaux jours 
sont j^ctsses, but for me I'amour, Vamour — que c'est 
gai, que c'est frais f" he half sung, half shouted. 

The moving mass of color, the Breton caps, and 
the Norman faces, the gold crosses that fell from 
dented bead necklaces, the worn hooped earrings, 
the clean bodices and home-spun skirts, streamed 
out past our windows as we looked down upon 
them. How pretty were some of the faces, of the 
younger women particularly ! and with what gay 
spirits they were beginning their day ! It had 
begun the night before, almost ; many of the 
carts had been driven in from the forests beyond 
Avranches : some of the Brittany groups had start- 
ed the day before. But what can quench the foun- 
tain of French vivacity ? To see one's world, surely, 
there is nothing in that to tire one ; it only excites 
and exhilarates ; and so a fair or market day, and 



376 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

above all a pilgrimage, are better tlian balls, since 
they come more regularly ; they are the peasant's 
opera, his Piccadilly and Broadway, club, drawing- 
room. Exchange, and parade, all in one. 

A half-hour after a landing of the pilgrims at 
the outer gates of the fortifications, the hill was 
swarming with them. The single street of the 
town was choked with the black gowns and the 
cobalt-blue blouses. Before these latter took a 
turn at their devotions they did homage to Bac- 
chus. Crowds of peasants were to be seen seated 
about the long, narrow inn-tables, lifting huge 
Ijewter tankards to bristling beards. Some of these 
taverns were the same that had fed and sheltered 
bands of pilgrims that are now mere handfuls of 
dust in country churchyards. Those sixteenth cen- 
tury pilgrims, how many of them, had found this 
same arched doorway of La Licorne as cool as the 
shade of great trees after the long hot climb up 
to the hill ! What a ijleasant face has the tim- 
bered fagade of the Tete d'Or, and the Mouton 
Blanc, been to the weary-limbed ! and how sweet 
to the dead lips has been the first taste of the acid 
cider ! 

Other aspects of the hill, on this day of the 
pilgrimage, made those older dead-and-gone b^nds 
of pilgrims astonishingly real. On the tops of 
bastions, in the clefts of the rocks, beneath the 
glorioiis walls of La Merveille, or i3erilously lodged 
on the crumbling cornice of a tourelle, numerous 
rude altars had been hastily erected. The crude 
blues and scarlets of banners were fluttering, like 
so many pennants, in the light breeze. Beneath 




STREET SCENE— MONT SAINT MICHEL. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 377 

the improvised altar-roofs — strips of gay cloth 
stretched across poles stuck into the ground — were 
groups not often seen in these less fervent centu- 
ries. High up, mounted on the natural pulpit 
formed of a bit of rock, with the rude altar before 
him, with its bit of scarlet cloth covered with cheap 
lace, stood or knelt the priest. Against the wide 
blue of the open heaven his figure took on an im- 
posing sjDlendor of mien and an unmodern impres- 
siveness of action. Beneath him knelt, with bowed 
heads, the groups of the peasant-pilgrims ; the 
women, with murmuring lips and clasped hands, 
their strong, deeply-seamed faces outlined, with 
the precision of a Francesco painting, against the 
gray background of a giant mass of wall, or the 
amazing breadth of a vast sea-view ; children, 
squat and chubby, with bulging cheeks starting 
from the close-fitting French bonnet ; and the peas- 
ant-farmers, mostly of the older varieties, whose 
stiffened or rheumatic knees and knotty hands 
made their kneeling real acts of devotional zeal. 
There were a dozen such altars and groups scat- 
tered over the perpendicular slant of the hill. 
The singing of the choir-boys, rising like skylark 
notes into the clear space of heaven, would be 
floating from one rocky-nested chapel, while be- 
low, in the one beneath which we, for a moment, 
were resting, there would be the groaning murmur 
of the peasant groups in prayer. 

All day little processions were going up and 
down the steep stone steps that lead from forti- 
fied rock to parish church, and from the town to 
the abbatial gateway. The banners and the choir- 



87S THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

boys, the priests in their embroideries and lace, 
the peasants in cap and blouse, were incessantly 
mounting- and descending, standing- on rock edges, 
caug-ht for an instant between a medley of perpen- 
dicular roofs, of giant gateways, and a long- per- 
spective of fortified walls, only to be lost in the 
curve of a bastion, or a flying buttress, that, in 
their turn, would be found melting into a distant 
sea- view. 

All the hours of a iDilgrimage, we discovered, were 
not given to prayer ; nor yet is an incessant bow- 
ing at the shrine of St. Michel the sole other di- 
version in a true pilgrim's round of joious devo- 
tions. Later on in this eventful day, we stumbled 
on a somewhat startling variation to the iDeniten- 
tial order of the performances. In a side alley, 
beneath a friendly overhanging rock and two pro- 
tecting roof-eaves, an acrobat was making her pro- 
fessional toilet. When she emerged to lay a worn 
strip of carpet on the rough cobbles of the street, 
she presented a iDathetic figure in the gold of the 
afternoon sun. She was old and wrinkled ; the 
rouge would no longer stick to the sunken cheeks ; 
the wrinkles were become clefts ; the shrunken 
but still muscular legs were clad in a pair of tights, 
a very caricature of the silken webs that must once 
have encased the poor old creature's limbs, for 
these were knitted of the coarse thread the com- 
monest peasant uses for the rough field stocking. 
Over these obviously home-made coverings was a 
single skirt of azure tarlatan, jolentifully be- 
sprinkled with golden stars. The gossamer skirt 
and its spangles turned, for their debut, a somer- 



THBEE NOBMANDT INNS. 379 

sanlt in tlie air, and the knitted tiglits took strange 
leaps from the bars of a rude trapeze. The groups 
of peasants .^'ere soon thicker about this spectacle 
than they had gathered about the improvised al- 
tars All the men who had passed the day m the 
taverns came out at the sound of the hoarse cracked 
voice of the aged acrobat. As she hurled her poor 
old twisted shape from swinging bar to pole, she 
cried aloud, ''Ah, messieurs, essayez Qa seukment 
The men's hands, when she had landed on her feet 
after an uncommonly venturous whirl of the blue 
skirts in mid-air, came out of their deep pock- 
ets; but they seasoned their applause wih coarse 
iokes which they flung, with a cruel relish, into 
the pitifully-aged face. A cracked accordion and a 
iin-ling tambourine were played by two hardened- 
looking ruffians, seated on their heels beneath a 
window-a discordant music that could not drown 
the noise of the peasants' derisive laughter, ^ut 
the latter's pennies rattled a louder jingle mto the 
ancient acrobat's tin cup than it had into the 
priest's green-netted contribution-box. 

"No madame, as for us, we do not care lor pii- 
o-rimages," was Madame Poulard's verdict on such 
survivals of past religious enthusiasms. And she 
seasoned her comments with an enlightening 
shru- "We see too well how they end. ilie 
men'go home dead drunk, the women are drop- 
pin- with fatigue, et les enfcmts meme se c/nsent de 
delve! No; pilgrimages are bad for everyone. 
The priests should not allow them." 

This was at the end of the day, after the black 
and blue swarm had passed, a weary, uncertain- 



380 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

footed throng-, down the long- street, to take its 
departure along- the dike. At the very end of the 
straggling procession came the three acrobats ; 
they had begged, or bought, a drive across the 
dike from some of the pilgrims. The lady of the 
knitted tights, in her conventional skirts and wom- 
anly fichu, was scarcely distinguishable from the 
peasant women who eyed her askance ; though de- 
cently garbed now, they looked at her as if she 
were some plague or vice walking in their midst. 

The verdict of Madame Poulard seemed to be 
the verdict of all Mont St. Michel. The whole 
town was abroad that evening-, on its doorsteps 
and in its garden-beds, repairing the ravages com- 
mitted by the band of the pilgrims. Never had 
the town, as a town, been so dirty ; never had the 
street presented so shocking a collection of abom- 
inations ; never had flowers and shrubs been so 
mercilessly robbed and plundered — these were the 
comments that flowed as freely as the water that 
was rained over the dusty cobbles, thick with re- 
fuse of luncheon and the shreds of torn skirts and 
of children's socks. 

At any hour of the day, of even an ordinary, un- 
eventful day, to take a walk in the town is to 
encounter a surprise at every turning. Would 
you call it a town — this one straggling street that 
begins in a King's gateway and ends — ah, that is 
the point, just where does it end ? I, for one, was 
never once quite certain at just what precise point 
this one single Mont St. Michel street stopped — 
lost itself, in a word, and became something else. 
That was also true of so many other things on the 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 3S1 

liill ; all objects liad such an astonisliing way of 
suddenly becoming* something else. A house, for 
example, that you had passed on your upward 
v/alk, had a beguiling" air of sincerity. It had its 
cellar beneath the street front like any other 
properly built house ; it continued its growth up- 
ward, sliowing the commonplace features of a door, 
of so many windows — queerly spaced, and of an 
amazing variety of shapes, but still unmistakably 
windows. Then, assured of so much integrity of 
character, you looked to see the roof covering the 
house, and instead — like the eg"gs in a Chinese 
juggler's fingers, that are turned in a jiffy into a 
growing- plant — behold the roof miraculously 
transformed into a garden, or lost in a rampart, 
or, with quite shameless effrontery, playing- de- 
serter, and serving as the basement of another and 
still fairer dwelling*. That was a sample of the 
way all things played you the trick of surprise on 
this hill. Stairways began on the cobbles of the 
streets, only to lose themselves in a side wall ; a 
turn on the ramparts would land you straight into 
the privacy of a St. Michelese interior, with an en- 
tire household, jperchance, at the mercy of your 
eye, taken at the mean disadvantage of morning 
dishabille. As for doors that flew open where you 
looked to find a bastion; or a school-house that 
flung all the Michelese voyous over the tops of the 
ramparts at play -time; or of fishwives that sprung, 
as full-armed in their kit as Minerva from her sire's 
brows, from the very forehead of fortified places ; 
or of beds and settees and wardrobes (surely no 
Michelese has ever been able, successfully, to 



882 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

maintain in secret the ghost of a family skele- 
ton !) into which you were innocently precipitated 
on your way to discover the minutest of all ceme- 
teries — these were all commonplace occurrences 
once your foot was set on this Hill of SuriDrises. 

There are two roads that lead one to the noble 
mass of buildings crowning the hill. One may 
choose the narrow street with its moss-grown 
steps, its curves, and turns ; or one may have the 
broader path along the ramparts, with its glori- 
ous outlook over land and sea. Whichever ap- 
proach one chooses, one iDasses at last beneath the 
great doors of the Barbican. 

Three times did the vision of St. Michel appear 
to Saint Aubert, in his dream, commanding the 
latter to erect a church on the heights of Mont 
St. Michel to his honor. How many a time must 
the modern i^ilgrim traverse the stupendous mass 
that has grown out of that command before he is 
quite certain that the splendor of Mont St. Michel 
is real, and not a part of a dream ! Whether one 
enters through the dark magnificence of the great 
portals of the Chatelet ; whether one mounts the 
fortified stairway, passing into the Salle des 
Gardes, passing onward from dungeon to fortified 
bridge,to gain the abbatial residence; whether -one 
leaves the vaulted splendor of oratories for aerial 
l^assage-ways, only to emerge beneath the majestic 
roof of the Cathedral — that marvel of the early Nor- 
man, ending in the Gothic choir of the fifteenth 
century; or, as one penetrates into the gloom of 
the mighty dungeons where heroes and the broth- 
ers of kings, and saints and scientists have died 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 3S3 

their long death — as one gropes through the black 
night of the Crypt, where a faint, mysterious glint 
of light falls aslant the mystical face of the Black 
Virgin; as one climbs to the light beneath the 
ogive arches of the Aumonerie, through the wide- 
lit aisles of the Salle des Chevaliers, past the 
slender Gothic columns of the Refectory, up at 
last to the crowning glory of all the glories of La 
Merveille, to the exquisitely beautiful colonnades 
of the open Cloister — the imiDressions and emo- 
tions excited by these ecclesiastical and mili- 
tary masterpieces are ever the same, however 
many times one may pass them in review. A 
charm, indefinable, but replete with subtle attrac- 
tions, lurks in every one of these dungeons. The 
great halls have a power to make one retraverse 
their space, I have yet to find under other 
vaulted chambers. The grass that is set, like a 
green jewel, in the arabesques of the Cloister, is a 
bit of greensward the feet press with a different 
tread to that which skips lightly over other strips 
of turf. And the world, that one looks out upon 
through prison bars, that is so gloriously arched 
in the arm of a flying buttress, or that lies prone 
at your feet from the dizzy heights of the rock 
clefts, is not the world in which you, daily, do 
your petty stretch of toil, in which you laugh and 
ache, sorrow, sigh, and go down to your grave 
in. The secret of this deep attraction may lie 
in the fact of one's being in a world that is built 
on a height. Much, doubtless, of the charm lies, 
also, in the reminders of all the human life that, 
since the early dawn of history, has peojDled this 



384 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

hill. One lias the sense of living at tremendously 
high mental pressure ; of impressions, emotions, 
sensations crowding upon the mind ; of one's 
whole meagre outfit of memory, of poetic equip- 
ment, and of imaginative furnishing, being un- 
equal to the demand made by even the most hur- 
ried tour of the great buildings, or the most 
flitting review of the noble massing of the clouds 
and the hilly seas. 

The very emptiness and desolation of all the 
buildings on the hill help to accentuate their 
splendor. The stage is magnificently set ; the 
curtain, even, is lifted. One waits for the coming 
on of kingly shapes, for the pomp of trumpets, 
for the pattering of a mighty host. But, behold, 
all is still. And one sits and sees only a shadowy 
company pass and repass across that glorious 
mise-en-scene. 

For, in a certain sense, I know no other mediaeval 
mass of buildings as peopled as are these. The 
dead shajDes seem to fill the vast halls. The Salle 
des Chevaliers is crowded, daily, with a brilliant 
gathering of knights, who sweep the trains of their 
white damask mantles, edged Avith ermine, over 
the dulled marble of the floor ; two by two they 
enter the hall ; the golden shells on their mantles 
make the eyes blink, as the groups gather about 
the great chimneys, or wander through the col- 
umn-broken space. Behind this dazzling cortege, 
up the steej) steps of the narrow street, swarm 
other groups — the mediaeval pilgrim host that 
rushes into the cathedral aisles, and that climbs 
the ramioarts to watch the stately jDrocession as it 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 3S5 

makes its way toward the church portals. There 
are still other figures that fill every empty niche 
and deserted watch-tower. Through the lancet 
windows of the abbatial g'ateways the yeomanry 
of the vassal villages are peering ; it is the weary 
time of the Hundred Years' AVar, and all France 
is watching, through sentry windows, for the ap- 
proach of her dread enemy. On the shifting 
sands below, as on brass, how indelibly fixed are 
the names of the hundred and twenty -nine knights 
whose courage drove, step by step, over that treach- 
erous surface, the English invaders back to their 
island strongholds. Will you have a less stormy 
and belligerent company to people the hill % In 
the quieter days of the fourteenth century, on 
any bright afternoon, you could have sat beside 
some friendly artist-monk, and watched him 
color and embellish those wondrous missals that 
made the manuscripts of the Brothers famous 
throughout France. Earlier yet, in those naive 
centuries, Robert de Torigny, that " bouche des 
Papes," would doubtless have discoursed to you 
on any subject dear to this " counsellor of kings " — 
on books, or architecture, or the science of fortifi- 
cations, or on the theology of Lanfranc ; from the 
helmeted locks of RoUon to the veiled tresses of 
the lovely Tiphaine Raguenel, Duguesclin's wife ; 
from the ghastly rat -eaten body of the Dutch 
journalist, who offended that tyrant King, Louis 
XIV., to the Revolutionary heroes, as jaitilessly 
doomed to an odious death under the gentle Louis 
Philippe — there is no shaiDe or figure in French 
history which cannot be summoned at will to refill 



386 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

either a dungeon or a palace chamber at Mont St. 
Micliel. 

Even in these, our modern days, one finds 
strange relics of past fashions in thought and 
opinion. The various political, religious, and 
ethical forms of belief to be met with in a fort- 
night's sojourn on the hill, give one a sense of 
having passed in review a very complete gallery 
of ancient and modern portraits of men's minds. 
In time one learns to traverse even a dozen or 
more centuries with ease. To be in the dawn of 
the eleventh century in the morning ; at high noon 
to be in the flood-tide of the fifteenth ; and, as the 
sun dipped, to hear the last word of our own dying 
century — such were the flights across the abysmal 
depths of time Charm and I took again and again. 

One of our chosen haunts was in a certain watch- 
tower. From its top wall, the loveliest prospect of 
Mont St. Michel was to be enjoyed. Day after day 
and sunset after sunset, we sat out the hours there. 
Again and again the world, as it passed, came and 
took its seat beside us. Pilgrims of the devout and 
ardent type would stop, perchance, would proffer 
a preliminary greeting, would next take their seat 
along the parapet, and, quite unconsciously, would 
end by sitting for their i^ortrait. One such sitter, 
I remember, was clad in carmine crepe shawl ; she 
was bonneted in the shape of a long-ago decade. 
She had climbed the hill in the morning before 
dawn, she said ; she had knelt in prayer as the sun 
rose. For hers was a pilgrimage made in fulfilment 
of a vow. St. Michel had granted her wish, and she 
in return had brought her prayers to his shrine. 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 387 

"All, mesclames! how g-ood is God! How 
greatly He rewards a little self-sacrifice. Figure 
to yourselves the Mont iu the early mists, with the 
sun rising out of the sea and the hills. I Avas on 
my knees, up there. I had eaten nothing since 
yesterday at noon. I was full of the Holy Ghost. 
When the sun broke at last, it was God Himself 
in all His glory come down to earth ! The whole 
earth seemed to be listening— ^^refmY roreille— and 
with the great stillness, and the sea, and the 
light breaking everywhere, it was as if I were be- 
ing taken straight up into Paradise. Saint Michel 
himself must have been supporting me." 

The carmine crepe shawl covered a poet, you 
see, as well as a devotee. 

Up yonder, in the little shops and stalls tucked 
away within the walls of the Barbican, a lively 
traffic, for many a century now, has been going on 
in relics und jyJomhs de pelerinage. Some of these 
medifeval impressions have been iniearthed m 
strange localities, in the bed of the Seine, as far 
away as Paris. Pvude and archaic are many of 
these early essays in the sculptor's art. But they 
preserve for us, in quaint intensity, the fervor of 
adoration which possessed that earlier, more de- 
vout time and period. On the mind of this nine- 
teenth century pilgrim, the same lovely old forms 
of belief and superstition were imprinted as are 
still to be seen in some of those winged figures of 
St. Michel, with feet securely set on the back of 
the terrible dragon, staring, with triumphant gaze, 
through stony or leaden eyes. 

On the evening of the pilgrimage our friend, 



388 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

the Parisian, joined us on our liig-li percli. The 
Mont seemed strangely quiet after the noise and 
confusion the peasants had brought in their train. 
The Parisian, like ourselves, had been g-lad to es- 
cajDe into the upper heights of the wide air, after 
the bustle and hurry of the day at our inn. 

" You i^ermit me, mesdames ? " He had lighted 
his after-dinner cigar ; he went on i^uffing, having 
gained our consent. He curled a leg comfortably 
about the railings of a low bridge connecting a 
house that sprang out of a rock, with the rampart. 
Below, there was a clean drop of a few hundred 
feet, more or less. In spite of the glories of a 
spectacular sunset, yielding ceaseless changes and 
transformations of cloud and sea tones, the words 
of Madame Poulard alone had power to possess 
our companion. She had uttered her protest 
against the i3ilgrimage, as she had swept the 
Parisian's 2^ousse-cafe from his elbow. He took up 
the conversation where it had been dropped. 

"It is amusing to hear Madame Poulard talk 
of the priests stopping the pilgrimages ! The 
priests ? Why, that's all they have left them to 
live upon now. These peasants' are the only 
XDOckets in which they can fumble nowadays." 

" All the same, one can't help being grateful to 
those peasants," retorted Charm. " They are the 
only creatures who have made these things seem 
to have any meaning. How dead it all seems ! 
The abbey, the cloisters, the old prisons, the 
fortifications — it is like wandering through a 
splendid tomb ! " 

" Yes, as the cure said yesterday, ' I'dTiie n'y est 



THREE NOBMANDY INNS. 389 

plus,' — since the priests have been dislodged, it is 
the house of the dead." 

" The priests " — ^the Parisian snorted at the very 
sound of the word — " they have only themselves 
to blame. They would have been here still, if 
they had not so abused their power." 

" How did they abuse it ? " Charm asked. 

" In every possible Avay. I am, myself, not of 
the country. But my brother was stationed here 
for some years, when the Mont was garrisoned. 
The priests were in full possession then, and they 
conducted a lively commerce, mademoiselle. The 
Mont was turned into a show — to see it or any 
part of it, everyone had to pay toll. On the great 
fete-days, when St. Michel wore his crown, the 
gold ran like water into the monks' treasury. It 
was still then a fashionable religious fad to have 
a mass said for one's dead, out here among the 
clouds and the sea. Well, try to imagine fifty 
masses all dumped on the altar together ; that is, 
one mass would be scrambled through, no names 
would be mentioned, no one save le hon Dieu him- 
self knew for whom it was being said ; but fifty or 
more believed they had bought it, since they had 
paid for it. And the priests laughed in their 
sleeves, and then sat down, comfortably, to count 
the gold. Ah, mesdames, those were, literally, the 
golden days of the priesthood ! What with the 
pilgrimages, and the sale of relics, and les henejices 
— together Avith the charges for seeing the won- 
ders of the Mont — what a trade they did ! It is 
only the Jews, who, in their turn, now own us, up 
in Paris, who can equal the priests as commercial 



390 THREE NORMAN DT INNS. 

geniuses ! " And our pessimistic Parisian, during- 
the next half-hour, gave us a prophetic picture 
of the approaching ruin of France, brought about 
by the genius for jolunder and organization that is 
given to the sons of Moses. 

Following the Parisian, a figure, bent and 
twisted, Oldened a door in a side-wall, and took 
his seat beside us. One became used, in time, 
to these sudden appearances ; to vanish down a 
chimney, or to emerge from the womb of a rock, 
or to come up from the bowels of what earth there 
was to be found — all such exits and entrances be- 
came as commonplace as all the other extraordi- 
nary phases of one's life on the hill. This particu- 
lar shape had emerged from a hut, carved, literally, 
out of the side of the rock ; but, for a hut, it was 
amazingly snug — as we could see for ourselves; 
for the venerable shape hospitably opened the 
low wooden door, that we might see how much of 
a home could be made out of the side of a rock. 
Only, when one had been used to a guard-room, 
and to great and little dungeons, and to a rattling 
of keys along dark corridors, a hut, and the blaze 
of the noon sun, were trying things to endure, as 
the shape, with a shrug, gave us to understand. 

" You see, mesdames, I was jailor here, years 
ago, when all La Merveille was a prison. Ah ! 
those were great days for the Mont ! There were 
soldiers and officers who came up to look at the 
soldiers, and the soldiers — it was their business 
to look after the prisoners. The Emperor himself 
came here once — I saw him. What a sight ! — Dieu ! 
all the monks and priests and nuns, and the arch- 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 391 

bishop liimself were out. AVhat banners and 
crosses and flag's ! The cannon was like a great 
thunder — and the greve w^as red with sokliers. 
Ah, those were days ! Dieu — why coukhi't the 
republic have continued those glories — ces gloires ? 
Aujourdlmi nous ne sommes que des morts — instead 
of prisoners to handle — to watch and work, like so 
many good machines — there is only the dike yon- 
der to keep in repair ! What chang-es — mon Dieu ! 
what changes ! " And the shape wrung his hands. 
It was, in truth, a touching spectacle of g-rief for a 
g'ood old i3ast. 

An old priest, with equally saddened vision, 
once came to take his seat, quite easily and 
naturally, beside us, on our favorite perch. He 
was one of the little band of priests who had 
remained faithful to the Mont after the govern- 
ment had dispersed his brothers — after the mon- 
astery had been broken up. He and his four 
or five companions had taken refuge in a small 
house, close by the cemetery ; it was they who 
conducted the services in the little parish church ; 
who had g-athered the treasures still grouped to- 
g-ether in that little interior — the throne of St. 
Michel, with its blue draperies and the golden 
fleur-de-lis, the floating banners and the shields of 
the Knights of St. Michel, the relics, and won- 
drous bits of carving rescued from the splendors 
of the cathedral. 

" Ah, mesdames — que voidez-vous ? " was the old 
priest's broken chant ; he was bewailing the woes 
that had come to his order, to religion, to France. 
" What will you have ? The history of nations 



392 THREE NORMANDY INNS. 

repeats itself, as we all know. We, of our day, are 
fallen on evil times ; it is the reign of image- 
breakers — nothing- is sacred, except money. 
France has worn herself out. She is like an old 
man, the hero of many battles, who cares only for 
his easy chair and his slippers. She does not 
care about the children who are throwing stones 
at the windows. She likes to snooze, in the sun, 
and count her money-bags. France is too old to 
care about religion, or the future — she is thinking 
how best to be comfortable — here in this world, 
when she has rlieumatism and a cramp in the 
stomach ! " And the old priest wrapped his own 
soutane about his lean knees, suiting his gesture 
to his inward convictions. 

Was the priest's summary the last word of 
truth about modern France ? On the sands that 
lay below at our feet, we read a different answer. 

The skies were still brilliantly lighted. The 
actual twilight had not come yet, with its long, 
deep glow, a passion of color that had a longer life 
up here on the heights than when seen from a 
lower level. This twilight hour was always a pro- 
longed moment of transfiguration for the Mont. 

The very last evening of our stay, we chose this 
as the loveliest light in Avhich to see the last of 
the hill. On that evening, I remember, the reds 
and saffrons in the sky were of an astonishing 
richness. The sea wall, the bastions, the faces of 
the great rocks, the yellow broom that sprang 
from the clefts therein, were dyed as in a carmine 
bath. In that mighty glow of color, all things 
took on something of their old, their stupendous 



THREE NORMANDY TNNS. 393 

splendor. The giant walls were paved with 
brightness. The town, climbing the hill, assumed 
the proportions of a mighty citadel ; the forest 
tree-tops were prismatic, emerald balls flung be- 
neath the illumined Merveille ; and the Cathedral 
was set in a daffodil frame ; its aerial escaUer de 
denteUe, like Jacob's ladder, led one easily heaven- 
ward. The circling birds, in the lace-work of the 
spiral finials, sang their night songs, as the glow 
in the sky changed, softened, deepened. 

This was the world that was in the west. 

Toward the east, on the flat surface of the 
sands, this world cast a strange and wondrous 
shadow. Jagged rocks, a pyramidal city, a 
Gothic cathedral in mid-air — behold the rugged 
outlines of Mont St. Michel carving their giant 
features on the shifting, sensitive surface of the 
mirroring sands. 

In the little pools and the trickling rivers, the 
fishermen — from this height, Liliputians grap- 
pling with Liliputian meshes — were setting* their 
nets for the night. Across the river-beds, peasant 
women and fishwives, with bared legs and baskets 
clasped to their bending backs, appeared and dis- 
appeared — shapes that emerged into the light 
only to vanish into the gulf of the night. 

In was in these pictures that we read our 
answer. 

Like Mont St. Michel, so has France carried 
into the heights of history her glory and her 
power. On every century, she, like this world 
in miniature, has also cast her shadow, dwarfing 
some, illuminating others. And, as on those 



394 



THREE NORMANDY INNS. 



distant sands the toiling- shapes of the fishermen 
are to be seen, early and late, in summer and 
winter, so can France point to her people, whose 
industry and amazing talent for toil have made 
her, and maintain her, great. 

Some of these things we have learned, since, in 
Normandy Inns, we have sat at meat with her 
peasants, and have grown to be friends with her 
fishwives. 




Mnf,?,!^.'^,^^ OF CONGRESS 



• 



019 627 362 1 



